Clive Owen Returns as The Driver for BMW Films

He's not quite a spy, but Clive Owen's enigmatic character The Driver from the series of BMW Films in the early 2000s is certainly spy-adjacent. And he (somewhat circuitously) inspired an even more spy-adjacent character, The Transporter. The Driver first appeared in a series of eight short films produced in 2001 and 2002 known collectively as The Hire. It was an innovative idea. BMW approached top international directors including John Frankenheimer, Wong Kar-wai, Guy Ritchie and Alejandro González Iñárritu, to helm short films (or long, plot-driven commercials) featuring Owen driving various BMWs in various action/adventure scenarios ranging from comedic (Ritchie's) to downright surreal (Tony Scott's, which featured Gary Oldman as the devil). The shorts were collected on a now out of print DVD, and beloved by many fans. In 2005, Dark Horse published a less successful comic book version, which also tried the strategy of recruiting industry superstars like Kurt Busiek and Matt Wagner (and, oddly, Bruce Campbell, who is a superstar... but not as a comic book writer!), but kind of missed the mark by using concept cars instead of actual BMWs on the market. That was the last we had heard from The Driver. Until now.

Now, fifteen years later, The Hollywood Reporter reports that Owen is back in the role! Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium) directs a new 11-minute short entitled The Escape, and intended, according to the trade, as "an homage to the original series." Does that mean it's not an actual sequel? Unclear, for the moment, but it certainly looks like a new entry in the franchise we're familiar with. Also unclear is whether this is simply a one-off, or if this is the first of a new series of Hire shorts. I'm certainly hoping for the latter! In addition to Owen, original series creative director Bruce Bildsten, executive producer Brian DiLorenzo, producer Steve Golin, and creative consultant David Carter all return. The latter co-wrote the new short with Blomkamp. Jon Bernthal (The Accountant), Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring) and Dakota Fanning (Man on Fire) co-star.

The Escape will premiere October 23 on the BMW Films official website.

Here's a teaser:



...and a short behind-the-scenes video:

Watch Omega's SPECTRE Commercial

Yet another promotional partner is now giving SPECTRE terrific free advertising with an Omega watch ad that's basically a SPECTRE TV spot with a few beauty shots of the new Omega Seamaster 300 SPECTRE Limited Edition watch thrown in. (And it's a very nice looking watch!)

SPECTRE Land Rover Commercial

Here's another SPECTRE-inspired promotional partner commercial. Unlike the ones we've already seen for Sony smartphones (featuring Naomie Harris as Moneypenny) and Belvedere Vodka, or the unmissable Heineken spot with Daniel Craig, this Land Rover commercial doesn't feature any new concepts or exclusive footage. It's just shots from the Alpine chase scene in the movie re-cut to put the focus on the Land Rovers. I suppose there may be a few extra shots in this that didn't make the final film, and of course the material is edited differently than in the movie, but more or less this spot is just film clips. It's still cool, though, and still worth posting and watching!

Another SPECTRE TV Spot

Another new SPECTRE TV spot was released yesterday. Check it out:

Moneypenny Hawks Smartphones

Every time a new James Bond movie comes out, some people invariably begin complaining about product placement. Not me! I understand that product placement is a crucial part of the financial model that funds big budget movies, and has been for quite some time, and I'm fully cognizant of the fact that it's been an equally big part of the Bond series specifically for so long that it simply feels like part of the formula I love. I can't imagine a Bond film without product placement. Furthermore, I think it's a kind of appropriate extension of Ian Fleming's own penchant for naming brands he liked in his novels. And one more thing. I love seeing James Bond-inspired commercials. (Who can forget John Cleese's classic Schweppes spot from Licence To Kill? Or the time Christina Hendricks was a Bond Girl opposite Pierce Brosnan... in a Visa commercial from Tomorrow Never Dies?) Well, now the commercials tying in to SPECTRE have started airing! This one (via Dark Horizons), featuring Miss Moneypenny (Namoie Harris) shilling for Sony products like digital cameras and smartphones, is particularly notable because it's directed by seven-time 007 title designer Daniel Kleinman. It's also just pretty cool!



And this one, for Belvedere Vodka (via MI6), features SPECTRE Bond Girl Stephanie Sigman. The Rube Goldberg bartending is amusing, but seems more appropriate to a Jean-Pierre Juenet movie than a James Bond film.

New SPECTRE TV Spot

There's a cool new SPECTRE TV spot out today, with quite a bit of new footage and dialogue. Check it out:

New SPECTRE TV Spot

A TV spot for SPECTRE airing during the NBA finals tonight revealed copious new footage after beginning in a familiar way for anyone who's seen the teaser trailer. And, man, does it look cool! The teaser was notable (and effective!) for not showing any action at all. The second half of this spot is pretty much all action, and it's fun to see how it seems to tie in with the non-action bits we were already treated to. For example, it looks as if James Bond doesn't get out of that mysterious meeting he seems to have infiltrated all that easily. There's even a hint that, just possibly, 007's Aston Martin DB10 might have a gadget! I can't tell if that fire behind it is because the road's on fire, or because it has some sort of rear-mounted flame thrower. Considering Q is still stuck at a computer monitor dealing with a system shutdown (again?!), perhaps it's not a gadget after all. Making up for a relative lack of romantic conquests in his films compared to other Bond actors, Daniel Craig gets close to both Bond women (Léa Seydoux and Monica Bellucci) in this trailer... and even finds an entirely new way to deliver his immortal line of introduction, "Bond... James Bond!" Hopefully this TV spot portends a longer trailer in the very near future. We just saw a second Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation trailer, and the new Man From U.N.C.L.E. trailer is supposed to drop tomorrow, so we need another Bond one to match!

Pierce Brosnan Pokes Fun at His James Bond Image in Kia Sorento Super Bowl Spot

Well, Kia has managed to get me to give them free advertising by reposting their commercial by casting Pierce Brosnan in it. And I'll happily do so for any commercial with Brosnan! That's a good way to get my attention during Super Bowl advertising breaks. I found this pretty amusing.

A Eurospy-Inspired Wendy's Commercial?

This is kind of weird, but worth noting. If you've visited the IMDb lately, you've no doubt noticed some odd ads for what fast food chain Wendy's is calling their "first ever short film," something called The Star of Tuscany. While the main purpose of this short is to advertise the chain's Tuscan Chicken on Ciabbata sandwich, I find it fascinating that they've chosen a Eurospy template to do so. The gimmick is that users create the film's dialogue by providing their own subtitles for the spoken Italian, but the plot of the black and white film is clearly inspired by the Italian spy and caper films of the early Sixties. I had no idea that Eurospy had seeped so deeply into today's public conscious that it would ever even be considered as the basis for a major American ad campaign! If you're so inclined, you can check out the trailer and several parts of the film (which is being posted in installments) here, and even contribute your own silly subtitles, What's Up, Tiger Lily-style. Or you can watch Part 1 below:

Return of the Painted Poster: Gambit Remake

Gambit's not a spy movie; it's a caper... but that hasn't stopped me from writing about it on occasion here before. Anything Sixties and swinging and Michael Caine is fair game in my book! And it's a really fun film, that lots of spy fans are apt to enjoy, co-starring Shirley MacLaine and the recently late, always great Herbert Lom. But this post actually isn't about that Gambit. It's about the new Gambit, a remake with Colin Firth donning Michael Caine's signature glasses, Cameron Diaz in the MacLaine role, Alan Rickman filling Lom's shoes (who else possibly could?), and Otley's Tom Courtenay in another part. The script is written by Joel and Ethan Coen (that's right: the Coen Brothers), but when it comes to remakes, that's no guarantee. (Remember The Lady Killers?) Still, I'm hoping this one's good. Its poster certainly is! That's the real reason I'm talking about it. Fans of Sixties spy movies tend to be fans of the lurid, illustrated posters of the Frank McCarthy/Robert McGinnis school—the sort seldom seen since A View To A Kill. I certainly am. Which is why it thrills me to see a poster (via Sky Movies) for a new movie marketed with actual artwork instead of a Photoshopped collage of actors' faces floating over a generic bluish background! It's not quite on par with the original's posters, but I'm definitely a fan of this campaign. Below is the original's McGinnis artwork for comparison.

Sky Movies HD Promo Cuts All the Bonds Into One Spectacular Car Chase

This is just an ad for the UK's new Sky HD 007 satellite channel (which is, admittedly, a pretty cool thing, since it collects all the Bond movies in HD in the same place), but it's really well done. Sky's editors have cut together several classic Bond car chases to create one massive cliffside car chase involving all six official James Bonds! The opening Aston Martin chase from Quantum of Solace proved an especially good framework to cut the other pieces into since it itself was so nonsensically edited to begin with! I particularly like the exchange created between Brosnan and Moore:

New James Bond Coke Zero Commercial

Once again, Coke Zero is a promotional partner for the new James Bond movie. There's no new footage of Skyfall in this new Coke Zero commercial, and there's no sneak preview of the new theme song (the last one utilized an instrumental version of Jack White's song prior to its official debut, much to the singer's annoyance), but I kind of love this ad. It's for more creative than the Quantum of Solace-era tie-in, and it succeeds better than most that have gone this route in celebrating Bond fandom rather than Bond.
(via MI6)

Archer Returns in a Big Way

The jerkiest spy since The Adventurer returns tonight, when Archer begins its third season on FX.  The network has released a number of cool stills and hilarious clips from the new season, and it looks just as promising as those that came before. (Both prior seasons have made my Best of the Year lists in television, here and here.) And the advertising, like the look off the show itself, is once again heavily Bond-inspired. Existing in a sort of never-never nebula where the Cold War never ended and classic From Russia With Love menswear never went out of style, Archer always provides as many nods to past pop culture as it does references to present pop culture. This year's poster art adds Cheryl's ocelot into the mix, which is itself a Honey West reference, and the TV spots all play Nancy Sinatra's theme song from The Last of the Secret Agents. The season premiere manages to name-check a pretty obscure Sixties spy movie, too... and in the process makes what I am certain is the best Operation C.I.A. joke ever made on a TV show!

Archer isn't just back on TV though. In addition to the Complete Season Two DVDs and Blu-rays that came out a few weeks ago, this week saw the release of a brand new book by Sterling Archer himself, How to Archer: The Ultimate Guide to Espionage and Style and Women and Also Cocktails Ever Written. The contents are very similar to Kingsley Amis's classic James Bond lifestyle bible The Book of Bond or Every Man His Own 007, providing all sorts of details on how to live the Archer lifestyle written in classic Archer deadpan, but the cover is something else. The cover itself is one of those great, obscure pop culture references that Archer excels at, perfectly recreating the look of a Sixties Annual. It's got hints of the James Bond annuals and a Danger Man one. I love it! You can sample the contents for yourself courtesy of publisher Harper Collins here.

Archer returns tonight, January 19, at 10pm Eastern on FX. The season premiere, guest starring Burt Reynolds, should continue to air throughout the weekend. Check your local listings, as they used to say.

BMW Product Placement in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

I was no fan of James Bond driving German cars, but I did like the print and TV ads that accompanied the marque's tenure as Bond Car. People give spy movies (and especially the Bond films) a hard time for their product placement, but it's actually an aspect of the films I enjoy. Especially when it comes to vehicles. (The best thing about the Val Kilmer Saint movie was the Volvo tie-in, with those ads that treated the C70 as if it were a Bond car, complete with a wannabe Q.) BMW is a better fit for Ethan Hunt than 007 anyway, so I welcome the return of spy-themed Beemer ads we've been treated to on TV for the last week, spotlighting the expensive electric dream car that won't even see production until 2013 (the awkwardly named Vision EfficientDynamics) and the new 6 series coupe and convertable. Here are two "Mission to Drive" spots:




You can see more (and download wallpapers) on BMW's Mission: Impossible website.

Russian Spies Are Everywhere

Irina didn't rate a poster of her own in the UK, but actress Svetlana Khodchenkova is big enough in Russia (where she's posed for the cover of Playboy) to get her own character poster in the same style as those that were used elsewhere in Europe earlier this year for most of the movie's male characters. (Courtesy of the Imp Awards.) She also gets her face right next to Smiley's on the Russian quad (a significant promotion given the relatively small role her character plays in the novel). Speaking of which, isn't it weird to see a John Le Carré movie promoted in Karla's language? I suspect George Smiley would be delighted.

Meanwhile, as a further testament to the promotional power of casting global stars in Hollywood movies, Russian actor Vladimir Mashkov (Alias) merits his own character poster in his home country (complete with a Kremlin background) for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, in the same style as the U.S. bus stop designs. So does French actress Léa Seydoux (Inglourious Basterds), making a nearly complete set. No doubt Anil Kapoor (24) will feature prominently in the Indian campaign, and Michael Nyqvist (The Girl Who Played With Fire) in Swedish advertisements.

More New Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Posters

Billboards and bus stop posters for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol started popping up around Los Angeles last week, which is always very exciting! And the Imp Awards have the images. I'm still not crazy about Tom Cruise's hoodie, but it looks better when it's giant and in conjunction with these other character posters. All lined up together, they make an impressive wall to many a local construction site.

Then there's also this crazy Japanese one which seems to portray Ethan Hunt as an anime character, complete with appropriate hair and goggles. Cruise's hair is usually a big part of M:I theatrical campaigns, as is his profile, but with that face-on hoodie image dominating American marketing, we have to look to Japan to maintain tradition:

Mission: Impossible Car Commercial With Peter Graves

Mission: Impossible Car Commercial With Peter Graves

Still trying to fill the void left in my life by finishing the last season of Mission: Impossible on DVD last year, I've been scouring YouTube for Peter Graves clips and stumbled across this awesome 1980s Oldsmobile commercial starring Graves and featuring Lalo Schifrin's Mission: Impossible theme music. It's not M:I, but it's closer to it than the movies!



There was also one with Graves' two season Mission: Impossible co-star, Leonard Nimoy, but it traded on his more famous Star Trek image instead of Mission. And it's not nearly as awesome.

If Eighties Graves simply won't do for you, and Seventies fashions are more important than Mission trappings like rubber face masks and music, you can also get a dose of Seventies Graves (open shirt and all) in the actor's light beer spots from that decade, like this one:

Reminder: Burn Notice Starts Early This Winter

USA has started an ad campaign to remind viewers that the winter portion of Season 4 of Burn Notice kicks off in November this year instead of January, as previously announced.  November 11, to be precise–next week!  Deadline points out that the poster boasts virtually the same tagline as A&E's The Glades, which is also set in Florida. Consequently, USA has stopped using it.

Poster For The American

I like this new poster for the George Clooney assassin movie The American.  Frankly, I'm dubious that any movie in this genre can top Pierce Brosnan's awesome turn in The Matador, but I think both trailers look good nonetheless.  Beautiful European locations, beautiful women, international intrigue, a priest with a gun and Clooney as an assassin... I'm in.  And that stark one-sheet is really great. You can watch both trailers on Yahoo's page for the movie.  The American opens September 1.

CW's Nikita Ad Campaign

I was nonplussed by the clip from the pilot that circulated after the CW's upfront presentation, but it's hard to ignore the very sexy (and very red) marketing campaign for the network's new TV version of La Femme Nikita, now called simply Nikita and embodied by the beautiful Maggie Q (Mission: Impossible III).  These poster and banner images seem to adorn all the busstops and billboards in LA right now, which is certainly not a bad thing. While that clip belied a budget lower than we're currently used to seeing from spy TV (Judge Dredd director Danny Cannon recently bragged about delivering the pilot for a paltry sum), the full trailer on the show's official site looks far more promising.  Those interested in the fourth incarnation of the female assassin created two decades ago by Luc Besson should be sure to head over there, where you can also check out the Nikita panel from Comic-Con and other behind-the-scenes videos.