First Poster for NO TIME TO DIE, Daniel Craig's Last Outing as James Bond

I've never quite understood the concept of "James Bond Day" (or "Global James Bond Day?"). But maybe that's because since I was 11, I don't think there's been any day I haven't thought about James Bond! Maybe there are people out there who need reminding? Anyway, to mark this year's James Bond Day, MGM and EON have released the first poster for Daniel Craig's final outing as Bond, No Time To Die. No Time To Die, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ana de Armas, Jeffrey Wright, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Billy Magnussen, David Dencik, and Rory Kinnear, opens in the U.S. on April 8, 2020.

Trailer: CHARLIE'S ANGELS (2019)

The latest incarnation of Charlie's Angels is a new feature film directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Kristin Stewart (American Ultra), Ella Balinska (Hunted), and, after seeing her in Guy Ritchie's Aladdin, my pick for Modesty Blaise should any studio ever wake up and realize the world is running out of heroes, Naomi Scott. And, after McG's two movies in the early 2000s (especially the second one) dabbled in espionage, this version seems to dive full into spy territory. And it looks pretty awesome! Charlie's Angels, which co-stars Banks (Catch Me If You Can), Patrick Stewart (Smiley's People), and Sam Claflin (Any Human Heart) opens November 15. Check out the trailer!

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT Character Posters and International Trailer

Paramount has released nine new character posters for Mission: Impossible - Fallout with a really great tagline: "Some missions are not a choice." They showcase series regulars like Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, returnees from Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation like Rebecca Ferguson and Sean Harris, and new faces like Vanessa Kirby and Angela Bassett. There's also an international trailer that's slightly different from the second domestic one we saw last week, offering some alternative footage and more of certain characters. Check it out.

xxx

Trailer: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT

As promised, Paramount debuted the new trailer for Mission: Impossible - Fallout today. And it certainly looks like another winner! Will this be three great Missions in a row? Check out the trailer and judge for yourself.

New Poster and Trailer for MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT

Paramount has released a new poster for Tom Cruise's sixth Mission: Impossible movie, Mission: Impossible - Fallout. A new trailer will debut tomorrow. (If the waiting is killing you, you can still tide yourself over with the awesome first trailer!) Cruise once again stars as Ethan Hunt; the supporting cast including returnees Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Alec Baldwin, Sean Harris, and Michelle Monaghan, and newcomers Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, and Henry Cavill. (No Jeremy Renner this time around.)  Christopher McQuarrie, who helmed the last entry in the series, Rogue Nation, returns to direct. (A first for the series, which has historically used a different director for each film.)

First Teaser Trailer: CONDOR TV Series

It was just over three years ago that we first heard Three Days of the Condor would be remade as a TV series. Last week AT&T's Audience Network released the first trailer for their upcoming series, Condor (a simplified title that, while lacking some coolness, conveniently avoids the potentially limiting question of a specified number of days altogether), a reimagining of one of the spy genre's cornerstone stories, based on James Grady's classic 1974 novel Six Days of the Condor and Sydney Pollack's iconic 1975 film of it, Three Days of the Condor. While the trailer doesn't look very familiar to fans of the movie or the novel, the description on the show's official website does:

Joe Turner has always been conflicted about his work for the CIA. But when something he’s discovered gets his entire office killed, leaving Joe as the only survivor and forcing him to go on the run, the theoretical reservations he’s always harbored turn into all-too-real moral dilemmas. Under life or death pressure, Joe will be forced to redefine who he is and what he’s capable of in order to discover who’s behind this far-reaching conspiracy, and stop them from completing their deadly objective that threatens the lives of millions. Inspired by Paramount’s Sydney Pollack 1975 political thriller Three Days of the Condor. Condor stars Max Irons, William Hurt, Leem Lubany, Mira Sorvino, Brendan Fraser, and Bob Balaban.

So, as we first learned a year ago, the series protagonist played by Max Irons (Crooked House) will be named Joe Turner, like Robert Redford's character in the film, and not Ronald Malcolm, as in the book. But the movie was close enough to its source material (despite a few key differences) that if the TV series is at all faithful to either, it should at least resemble both. Katherine Cunningham (The Playboy Club) takes on the Faye Dunaway role of Kathy Hale (again using the character's movie name rather than book name), and 20-year-old Israeli Arab actress Leem Lubany (Rock the Casbah) plays Gabrielle Joubert, a variation on the iconic role of the professional killer played so memorably by Max Von Sydow in the film.

When it was first announced, the project was described as a limited series (what we used to call miniseries). But that's changed, and now it's just referred to as a series. Should we get subsequent seasons, I would love to see them based on some of Grady's later Condor novels--especially the overlooked second one, Shadow of the Condor. I kind of doubt that will happen, but it would be cool.

My understanding is that the Audience Network was previously only available to DirecTV satellite subscribers, but now there is an app, DirecTV Now (similar to HBO Go, I think), that allows users to stream it on various set-top devices. I haven't done this myself, and can't vouch for it. But when Condor premieres this June, I will have to figure out how to see it, and this seems the easiest way.

Trailer: THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME

Lionsgate released the trailer yesterday, and posters today, for this summer's The Spy Who Dumped Me, starring Mila Kunis (Black Swan) and Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live) as best friends who become embroiled in espionage when one of them (Kunis) discovers her ex was a secret agent. Justin Theroux (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) and Gillian Anderson (Johnny English Reborn) co-star. The Spy Who Dumped Me was directed by Susanna Fogel and written by Fogel and my talented friend Dave Iserson (Mad Men, Mr. Robot). I know they'll knock it out of the park! Check out the trailer, which opens with some well done Casino Royale-style title graphics.

Trailer and Poster for Final Season of FX's THE AMERICANS

FX has released a trailer for the sixth and final season of The Americans, which premieres on March 28th at 10pm EST. They've also released a typically stunning poster promoting the season. This series about Russian KGB spies living undercover as "illegals" in 1980s America started strong and went from strength to strength. In a word, it's been utterly fantastic throughout its run. Although a period drama set during the waning days of the Cold War, it's also become surprisingly more topical in recent years. The original plan was to see Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell) through the fall of the Berlin wall. Unless the final season spans multiple years, I don't see how they'll get to that point in history, but there are plenty of other burning questions to keep us on the edges of our seats until the finale. When I interviewed producer Graham Yost on the eve of The Americans' debut back in 2013, he concluded the session by quoting the FX Networks President. "John Landgraf said something that I thought perfectly sums it up: 'We know who won the Cold War. We don't know if Phillip and Elizabeth will survive. And that's the story. Will the marriage survive? Will the children survive?'" Five years later, we're on the verge of those answers. I can't wait to find out! Get a taste from the trailer below:

Read my 2013 review of The Americans pilot episode here.
Read my 2013 interview with executive producer Graham Yost here.

First Advance Poster for MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT

Today Paramount released the first advance poster for Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Fallout. I could be wrong, but off the top of my head I think this may be the first time a Mission: Impossible poster has depicted Tom Cruise holding a gun. The trailer is expected to drop this weekend, along with a Super Bowl spot. The sixth entry in the venerable film franchise (and second to be directed by McQuarrie, who also helmed Rogue Nation) opens July 27, 2018.

New RED SPARROW Trailer and Poster

20th Century Fox has released a new trailer and a very cool poster for Red Sparrow, the upcoming movie adaptation of Jason Matthews' terrific 2013 spy novel  (which made my list of the best spy novels of the last decade). The trailer makes it clear that certain changes have been made to the material, but of course that's to be expected in any adaptation. The movie is clearly being positioned as a star vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika Egorova, whereas the book is a two-hander focused equally on Russian double agent Dominika and her CIA handler Nate Nash, played on screen by Joel Edgerton. (I'm still not sold on him in that role, but none of the trailers so far have shown enough of him to really go by.) Red Sparrow, directed by Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer, though he previously worked with her on several Hunger Games movies), opens March 2. If you haven't yet read the book, I highly recommend doing so before then! The third and final book in Matthews' Egorova/Nash trilogy, The Kremlin's Candidate (the improbably topical plot of which has apparently undergone some changes since it was first announced), hits stores two weeks earlier, on February 13.

New AMERCIAN ASSASSIN Red Band Trailer and Poster

Lionsgate and CBS Films have released a new poster and two new trailers - one a restricted red band, the other approved for all audiences - for the first Mitch Rapp movie, American Assassin, which opens September 15 amidst a spy-packed month that also sees the releases of the Tom Cruise Iran-Contra movie American Made and Matthew Vaughn's eagerly anticipated sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

Mitch Rapp has taken a long, winding road to get to the screen, and it's unfortunate that author Vince Flynn didn't live to see the results. (Though like Bourne and Bond, Rapp has outlived his creator with new books still being published by continuation authors.) First set up at CBS Films for producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura way back in early 2008, actors like Gerrard Butler, Matthew Fox and Chris Hemsworth all at one time or another flirted with playing Flynn's counter-terror hero, and Bruce Willis was at one point up for the mentor role that eventually went to Michael Keaton. Legends' Jeffrey Nachmanoff and Legends of the Fall's Ed Zwick (who ultimately earned a writing credit on the final product) were both linked to direct at one time or another, before the job eventually went to Homeland veteran Michael Cuesta (Kill the Messenger), working from a script by The Americans' Stephen Schiff. Originally it was CBS Films' plan to adapt Flynn's 2005 novel Consent to Kill first. But at some point they shifted gears to tackle Flynn's prequel novel telling Rapp's origin story, and now American Assassin is a reality!

Trailer and Poster for Doug Liman's Iran-Contra Movie AMERICAN MADE

Universal has released the first trailer for the Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Fair Game)/Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Knight and Day) reunion (following their successful sci-fi collaboration Edge of Tomorrow), the Iran-Contra story American Made. This is the one that we first heard about two years ago, when it was called Mena, in which Cruise plays the infamous CIA pilot Barry Seale. Seale ended up at the epicenter of an intricate conspiracy involving the Agency, the White House, the Medellin Cartel, the Nicaraguan factions the Sandinistas (the government) and the Contras, Manuel Noriega, Pablo Escobar, Vice President George Bush, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and Oliver North, to name-check just a few strands of the web. Liman has a very personal connection to the material, as his father, Arthur Liman, was Chief Counsel in the Senate's investigation of the Iran-Contra Scandal and conducted the televised hearings that fascinated the nation in the summer of 1987 and made household names out of people like North and CIA Director William Casey. It's clear from the trailer that he has chosen to take a somewhat light-hearted approach to the subject matter (which makes sense when you focuse on someone involved at a ground-level, as opposed to North or Casey), possibly focusing more on the criminal aspects of Seale's career than the espionage aspects (not that there was any clear delineation between the two!). I can't wait to see the results!

Cruise will next be on screens in Universal's Mummy reboot, and is currently filming the next Mission: Impossible movie with returning director Christopher McQuarrie. American Made hits theaters September 29, coming in the same a spy-saturated month that also sees the releases of Kingsman: The Golden Circle and American Assassin.

Trailer for SAS Drama 6 DAYS

The first trailer is out for 6 Days, an SAS thriller about the same 1980 hostage standoff in the Iranian Embassy in London that inspired the action classic Who Dares Wins (aka The Final Option). Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Kingsman), Jamie Bell (TURN: Washington's Spies) and Abbie Cornish (Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan) star, along with the late Tim Pigott-Smith (Quantum of Solace) in one of his final performances and, in a nice touch, Who Dares Wins star Lewis Collins' old Professionals cohort, Martin Shaw. While there's still no release date officially set, Deadline recently reported that Vertical Entertainment "is eyeing a fall theatrical bow in the U.S. for the pic." Netflix is distributing in a number of international territories.

First Poster for KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

I was not a fan of the first Kingsman movie, but that doesn't mean I'm not excited for the sequel. I still like the premise, and I hope that this time Matthew Vaughn delivers on it with a little more fun and a little less gratuitous and offputting graphic violence. In Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Eggsy (Taron Edgerton) and Merlin (Mark Strong) encounter their American counterparts at the secret U.S. spy agency Statesman. Cue that favorite English stereotype of all Americans as cowboys. While the British stereotype (from the first film, but really borrowed from The Avengers) remains well-tailored suits and brollies, the American one is apparently jeans and whips. I would hazard that a larger percentage of Englishmen actually do carry umbrellas than Americans whips. I've lived in three very different geographical parts of the United States and never seen anyone with a whip in public outside of Indiana Jones cosplayers at Comic-Con.... Makes for great teaser poster iconography though!

The Coldest City Warms Up to Atomic Blonde, and Charlize Keeps Spying

The bad news is that, according to Deadline, Focus Features has changed the title of their Cold War Berlin comic book adaptation The Coldest City to Atomic Blonde. They had one of the coolest spy titles ever, and now they've got a Roller Derby competitor. (Nothing against Derby Dolls; they just aren't the same as spies.) They had a brand, and now they have a handicap. The good news, though, is that the movie looks awesome enough to overcome a title like that! (Perhaps it's just so damn cool that the studio thought it was only fair to handicap it?) Adding ammo to my suspicion of the movie's actual awesomeness and the studio's confidence in their product is the news that they will debut it at the hip South by Southwest film festival four and a half months before its July 28 opening, allowing plenty of time to build positive buzz. (And in another sign of confidence, they had previously moved up that opening from August to July, at the height of summer.)

Atomic Blonde is based on the Oni Press graphic novel The Coldest City, by Antony Johnston (Alex Rider, Queen & Country) and Sam Hart. While the moody, black and white comic (to which Johnston recently published a prequel, The Coldest Winter) played up the chilly, brooding Cold War paranoia of 1989 Berlin, it's clear from the (thankfully very cool) poster that the movie adaptation (penned by Kurt Jonstad and directed by David Leitch, half of the duo behind the ultra-stylish actionfest John Wick and the man tapped to direct Deadpool 2) instead plays up the neon MTV aspects of that decade. So perhaps it will be a little more Deutschland 83 than The Americans as 1980s-set spy entertainment goes. I think it's safe to say that we can expect a bit more action from the film, penned by Kurt Jonstad (Act of Valor), than the comic, which was more concerned with the treacherous internecine bureaucracy of Cold War espionage. Reigning action queen Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road) stars as MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton, dispatched to Berlin to unmask a mole on the eve of the fall of the Wall. James McAvoy (State of Play), Sofia Boutella (Kingsman), John Goodman (Argo), Til Schweiger (Inglourious Basterds) and Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) round out the impressive cast roster. Trust me, even with that title, this is going to be the coolest spy movie of 2017!

Theron, meanwhile, appears to be addicted to spying. In a separate story, Deadline reports that Universal has optioned Need to Know, a forthcoming spy novel from former CIA analyst Karen Cleveland, for her to star in and produce. (She also produces Atomic Blonde through her Denver & Delilah Films shingle.) According to the trade, the thriller follows "a wife and mother who works as a CIA analyst. One morning while digitally searching files in hopes of unmasking a Russian sleeper cell in the U.S., she makes a shocking discovery that threatens her job, her family and her life." There is no publisher yet set, but the manuscript apparently sparked an intense bidding war. Theron was also previously attached to star in a movie of the Mark Greaney novel The Gray Man, in which the book's generic male super-assassin hero was going to be changed to a woman, but we haven't heard any news on that project since 2015, so I'm not sure if she's still involved or not. The actress will next be seen in The Fate of the Furious, a project that reunites her with her Italian Job director and co-star, F. Gary Gray and Jason Statham. (The trailers make it look like this movie easily tops Die Another Day's car chase on ice.)

Paul Gulacy Paints Flint Tribute with Nick Fury, Black Widow and Shang-Chi

Paul Gulacy, a comic book artist instantly synonymous with spies thanks to his stellar work on titles like James Bond 007: Serpents Tooth and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, has revealed a new piece on his website that will be of particular interest to fans of the genre. The commission recreates Bob Peak's famous poster art for In Like Flint with Marvel spy heroes like Nick Fury, Black Widow (a la Maud Adams), Shang-Chi, Clive Reston and Leiko Wu. I particularly love seeing Fury in the Flint pose, as James Coburn would have certainly made an excellent Nick Fury at one time! (His role in Hudson Hawk, though not patched, actually feels of a piece to some degree with the Fake Nick Furies that populated filmdom prior to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Charlton Heston in True Lies, Angelina Jolie in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and a pre-Fury Sam Jackson in xXx.) Interestingly, Gulacy drew a spot-on Coburn as the hero of a horror comic that ran in Eerie Magazine in 1979. His epic espionage saga Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu (written by frequent collaborator Doug Moench) is currently (finally!) being reprinted by Marvel in massive hardcover Omnibus editions, which are worth every penny of their somewhat steep price tag. Here's the iconic original poster that inspired this awesome painting:

New xXx Trailer and Posters

Here's the second trailer for xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, which opens in January. I'll let Vin summarize the revival of 2002's 2002-iest spy franchise: "The good... the extreme... and the completely insane! Now that's a team I can work with!" Because those are the qualities the NSA looks for! (Do you think xXx will still work for the NSA? 2002 was the year Hollywood conspired to make audiences believe that secret agency employed shitkickers like Vin Diesel, Halle Berry and Michael Madsen, but will anyone believe that in today's post-Snowden world where most people now actually know what the NSA is and expect its employees to be a little more pasty-faced and slightly less X Games-y?)



Back in 2002, the ridiculousness of the premise annoyed me. Today, I have to admit, I can't help smiling ear to ear at that very ridiculousness, and especially at the sheer earnestness of said ridiculousness! Also at the fact that there is now a movie poster in the world depicting Toni Collette (Muriel's Wedding, Unlocked) as a badass superspy. There are twelve of these character posters in total, most featuring various muscly bearded men in fedoras with names that probably mean something to a generation much cooler (and presumably more extreme) than my own. You can see them all at Imp Awards. Surprisingly there isn't one for Samuel L. Jackson, who played a key role in both of the original xXx movies. It does look from the trailer like he might be moving on to an emeritus role and passing the torch to Collette as the extreme agent's primary handler. Perhaps now that Jackson is the real Nick Fury, he no longer feels compelled to play Fake Nick Furies? Sigh. I miss the days of Fake Nick Furies. Charlton Heston was the best one, of course, but Angelina Jolie actually made a pretty good one in Sky Captain.... Forgive me; I've gotten extremely off topic. Get it?!

The Kevin James Mistaken for an Assassin Movie Has a Trailer

Remember that movie we heard about where Kevin James gets mistaken for an assassin? Well, it's got a trailer now, and a poster, and a release date. The Netflix original movie will premiere on November 11. James (You Don't Mess With the Zohan) plays an author of a ridiculous Gray Man-type super assassin who gets mistaken for his fictional character and ends up on an adventure. Rob Riggle (Killers) plays a CIA agent tracking him, and Andy Garcia co-stars (which is always a good thing). Will it be another Le Magnifique... or more of a Paul Blart: Mall Cop? Take a look at the trailer and judge for yourself.

New Jason Bourne Poster

Universal has released a new international poster for Jason Bourne, Matt Damon's eagerly anticipated return to the titular Robert Ludlum character. Frankly, it's a pretty boring poster, if you ask me. (Especially compared with the simple, but exciting, teaser.) It looks like someone Photoshopped Damon's head onto a Taken poster... or lazily rehashed the worst James Bond campaign, from Die Another Day. That said, the movie itself (which also heralds the return to the franchise of director Paul Greengrass) looks characteristically fantastic! And it's nice to see Oscar winner Alicia Vikander getting a more prominent spot in the film's advertising than she did for her last spy movie, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Jason Bourne opens July 29 in the United States.

New Trailer and Posters: Le Carré's Our Kind of Traitor

We saw the British trailer a couple of months ago; now we get our first American trailer for Our Kind of Traitor, courtesy of Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions—along with the rather uninspired U.S. (above) and UK (below) posters for the John le Carré adaptation, based on his highly entertaining 2010 novel. Ewan McGregor (Stormbreaker), Naomie Harris (Skyfall), Damian Lewis (Homeland), Mark Gatiss (Sherlock) and Stellan Skarsgård (The Hunt for Red October) star. Our Kind of Traitor opens July 1 in the United States, and May 13 in the UK.