Tradecraft: Cruise, McQuarrie Accept Back-to-Back MISSIONS

For its first fifteen years, the Mission: Impossible movie franchise was remarkable as a directors' franchise, purposely switching up helmers (and styles, characters, and even continuity) to give each installment a unique feel rather than a Bond-like house style. That all changed when Christopher McQuarrie hit a home run with the fifth film in the series, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), and returned to direct the sixth as well, last year's mega-hit Mission: Impossible - Fallout. Now, it appears that that wasn't an anomaly in the franchise's history, but a whole new direction. Variety reports that McQuarrie has just signed on to write and direct not just one more, but the the next two Mission: Impossible movies, which will film back to back for release in summer 2021 and summer 2022. Tom Cruise confirmed the dates--and presumably his involvement--with a lit fuse tweet this afternoon.

From the perspective of the studio, Paramount, it is not a surprising move. Fallout was both the highest grossing and best reviewed picture in the franchise to date, so locking down McQuarrie makes sense. Once these movies are made, he will have directed a full half of the film series. (For that matter, by that point Cruise will have surpassed Sean Connery's and Roger Moore's tied 7-film record for the most number of times playing a superspy in a major franchise.) For Fallout, as it was the franchise's first film with a returning director, McQuarrie made a point of differentiating it visually and sonicly from his previous entry by working with a different cinematographer and composer. It will be interesting to see if he continues that trend, or settles on a house team. The latter would make sense for the next two, anyway, since the plan is to shoot them back-to-back. This, also, makes sense, as even Tom Cruise can't defy age forever, and will one day have to choose not to accept some death-defying stunt. Back-to-back James Bond movies have been rumored at various times during Daniel Craig's tenure as the secret agent, but always shot down by both producers and the actor, who say that the demands would be impossible. But impossible is, of course, Cruise and McQuarrie's bread and butter! Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Russo Brothers' last two Marvel Avengers movies famously shot back to back, both with extensive reshoots planned into the schedule for the later films. 

Presumably committing to what sounds like full-time Mission: Impossible duties for the foreseeable future will rule out McQuarrie as a writer/director on what Paramount is hoping turns out to be their next big spy franchise, the nascent John Clark series with Michael B. Jordan attached to topline, based on the bestselling Tom Clancy novels. Over the years, McQuarrie had been flirting with helming or directing the first picture in that series, the long-in-the-works Without Remorse. Though it's just possible that he might still be able to squeeze that in before the next Mission, since the studio has already earmarked summer 2020 for another Cruise vehicle, the decades-later sequel Top Gun: Maverick. Hence the 2021 date for Mission: Impossible 7 (whatever it turns out being called). But that scenario is unlikely, as despite the extra time, the trade reports that Paramount hope to start shooting the next Mission movie by the end of this year. (And historically there's good reason to allow lots of time. Fallout had to pause filming for several months while Cruise recovered from an ankle injury sustained performing a rooftop stunt... but still made its original release date.) And, anyway, at last report Sicario 2 director Stefano Sollima was zeroing in on Without Remorse.

Now they just have to lock down the rest of the team! In the last three movies, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and now Rebecca Ferguson have all become equally essential to these films' success as the star, which is only right, given the original TV series' emphasis on teamwork rather than a lone wolf secret agent. I'd also love to see Vanessa Kirby's White Widow from Fallout come back.

Read my review of Mission: Impossible - Fallout here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible III (2006) here.

Read my review of M:I-2 (2000) here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible (1996) here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Seventh TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Sixth TV Season here.

Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fifth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Fourth TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Third TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The Second TV Season here.
Read my review of Mission: Impossible: The First TV Season here.

Tradecraft: Paramount Picks SICARIO Sequel Director Sollima to Direct Michael B. Jordan in Tom Clancy's WITHOUT REMORSE

Deadline reports that Sicario: Day of the Soldado director Stefano Sollima is in talks to direct Michael B. Jordan in Paramount's next Tom Clancy movie, Without Remorse.

After a couple of underperforming movies, Clancy's famous CIA analyst Jack Ryan has finally found success on TV thanks to Amazon. Now Paramount hopes to build a new feature franchise around Clancy's other main hero, covert warrior John Clark. In September, Deadline reported that the studio has tapped Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther, Fruitvale Station) to star.

Clark, who became known as "Jack Ryan's dark side," was first introduced in Clancy's third Ryan novel, The Cardinal of the Kremlin in 1987, but retconned in Clear and Present Danger (when field man Clark and analyst Ryan finally meet face to face) to have also played an important role in the events of Patriot Games. He went on to take center stage in the Clancy novels Without Remorse (which goes back to Vietnam) and Rainbow Six. Clark is a former Navy Seal and off-books CIA field operator. In the films, he's been played by Willem Dafoe (in Clear and Present Danger opposite Harrison Ford as Ryan) and Liev Schrieber (in The Sum of All Fears opposite Ben Affleck).

Paramount hopes, of course, to launch a franchise. The plan is to start with Without Remorse, then do Rainbow Six. This is the reason that Clark has, sadly, not appeared on Amazon's TV show Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. Because the studio was planning a film, they didn't allow the show's producers to use Clark. That's really too bad, as both characters work better together. In the books, they compliment each other, as Ryan is frequently deskbound, and Clark is always up to his neck in action. There was a plan a few years ago to (re-)introduce Clark and Ryan individually in two feature films, Without Remorse and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, respectively, with This Means War co-stars Tom Hardy and Chris Pine playing Clark and Ryan (again, respectively), then team them up, Marvel-style, in a third film. (At that point Mission: Impossible - Fallout director Christopher McQuarrie was attached to Without Remorse.) Sadly, Shadow Recruit bombed and those plans never came to fruition. (Hardy has also been linked to another Clancy franchise, Splinter Cell.)

Italian director Sollima, who first achieved international acclaim for his mob drama Gomorra, is a good choice to launch a potential Clancy franchise. His Sicario sequel was more than a tad Clancy-esque, playing at first like an unofficial adaptation of Clear and Present Danger before going a different direction in its second half. Sollima did a good job blending compelling characterizations with military hardware fetishism, a crucial skill set for tackling Clancy material. Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) will produce alongside Jordan and screenwriting duo Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (Alias, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol).

It's unclear whether Sollima's Without Remorse will be a Vietnam-era period piece like the book (which would be fantastic!), or updated to a contemporary setting. Sadly, I suspect the latter. (Though if I were the president of Paramount, I would seriously consider the franchise prospects of a historical setting, which could ultimately follow Clark through three decades of CIA covert actions across multiple films....)

Tradecraft: Boyle Leaves Bond

Deadline and other trade outlets reported today that director Danny Boyle has exited Bond 25, according to an announcement made on the official James Bond Twitter feed credited to producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, and star Daniel Craig. The typical "creative differences" were cited as Boyle's reason for leaving what is slated to be Craig's final appearance as Agent 007. That's somewhat surprising, since the original (somewhat unusual) agreement as reported in the trades was that Boyle would only be hired if the producers were happy with John Hodge's script based on his specific idea. When they were happy with it, they jettisoned a previous version drafted by regular Bond scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and proceeded with Boyle and Hodge. It seemed like that would have been the time to iron out any creative differences. Now, with Boyle's departure, it's unclear what script EON, MGM, and domestic and international distributors Annapurna and Universal will move forward with. If they still hope to make their December production start, presumably it would make sense to proceed with the Hodge script that Boyle instigated, based on which pre-production was already underway. If that script is so personally tailored to Boyle that there's no point continuing with it with another director, they still have that Purvis and Wade Bond 25 script to fall back on. But presumably that would mean starting from scratch in pre-production, which could delay the start of the shoot, which could in turn delay the previously established fall 2019 release dates. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up with some hybrid of the two scripts. Personally, I'm quite disappointed by this turn of events. I was really looking forward to seeing what Boyle brought to Bond... and what his supposedly unique idea for the character turned out to be.

Tradecraft: Universal to Distribute Next Bond Movie Internationally, Annapurna and MGM Domestically

Danny Boyle Confirmed as Director

Deadline reports that EON Productions and MGM have made a deal with Universal to distribute the 25th James Bond movie internationally and on home video. The news is something of a surprise, as Warner Bros. had widely been considered the frontrunners. Sony has distributed all four Daniel Craig Bond pictures to date. This deal adds another superspy to Universal's franchise roster. The studio also distributes the Jason Bourne movies. Outside of the spy department, the studio is home to mega-franchises The Fast and the Furious and Jurassic World, and they certainly know how to market and distribute huge blockbusters worldwide. According to the trade, "domestic distribution will be handled by MGM and Annapurna through the joint venture they signed last year," as had been expected by many in the industry. While this will be a far bigger release than Annapurna has handled to date as a distributor, this strategy makes sense from MGM's point of view, as they've been eager to return to the distribution business for a while. MGM will also retain digital and worldwide television distribution rights. Digital may soon be a bigger earner than home video, if it isn't already. And retaining television rights is key for MGM's premium cable channel, EPIX.

The studio confirmed Deadline's scoop to the trade, and EON principals Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson issued a statement expressing their excitement at partnering with Universal and confirming that Danny Boyle will, indeed, direct the next Daniel Craig-starring installment. "We are delighted to announce that the exceptionally talented Danny Boyle will be directing Daniel Craig in his fifth outing as James Bond in the 25th installment of the franchise. We will begin shooting Bond 25 at Pinewood Studios in December with our partners at MGM and thrilled that Universal will be our international distributor.” While Boyle was first reported to be the frontrunner to helm the forthcoming Bond adventure in February, his involvement was said to be contingent on Broccoli and Wilson approving of a script being written by Boyle's frequent collaborator, John Hodge (Trainspotting), from a story concoted by Boyle. Apparently, that approval has now come.

Production on Bond 25 is slated to begin on December 3 of this year, with release dates still on track of October 25, 2019 in the UK, and November 8, 2019 in the U.S.

Tradecraft: Marvel Seeks Female Directors for BLACK WIDOW Movie (UPDATED)

Apparently the standalone Black Widow movie we heard chatter about in January is indeed quietly moving forward with women in key creative positions, even though Marvel Studios has resolved not to officially announce any future movies until after their fourth Avengers film premieres next year. (Just to clarify, I mean Marvel's Avengers, obviously, not the real Avengers, and I mean the next Marvel Avengers movie, not Avengers: Infinity War, which opens tonight and is expected to break just about every box office record.) But we still heard in January that Jac Schaeffer, a female screenwriter, had been hired to pen the script, and now, buried at the end of an article about Paramount hiring a female director for the next Star Trek movie, The Hollywood Reporter lets slip that Marvel are keen to hire a female director for female superspy Black Widow's solo debut. The trade reports that the studio has met with such filmmakers as Deniz Gamze Erguven (the acclaimed Turkish movie Mustang), Chloe Zhao (The Rider) and Amma Asante (A United Kingdom), among several others, but there is no clear frontrunner and the search remains ongoing. Asante's name may stand out for spy fans, as she's just signed on to direct a film of the popular book about legendary Cold War spy Adolf Tolkachev, The Billion Dollar Spy.

Presumably Scarlett Johansson would reprise her role from various Marvel Studios movies as Russian superspy Natasha Romanoff in any Black Widow movie. Despite Johansson being the only Avengers cast member to gross $450+ million in her own original movie outside of that franchise, it has taken Marvel much too long (and probably the success of Wonder Woman and Atomic Blonde) to realize the potential for a female-driven film. (Their first will be Captain Marvel, due next year.) Now that they are finally taking notice of the massive audience for such a movie, it's nice to see them lining up women behind the camera as well as in front.

Read more about the Black Widow comics the film will likely draw from and the character's screen history here.

UPDATE: According to a report on The Playlist, Marvel has actually met with upwards of sixty directors about the potential Black Widow gig! At least we know three of them....

Tradecraft: Amma Assante to Direct Tolkachev Movie BILLION DOLLAR SPY

Variety reports that British director Amma Asante (Belle) will helm a movie about legendary Cold War spy Adolf Tolkachev, based on David E. Hoffman’s book The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal. Tolkachev was the chief designer at the USSR’s Research Institute of Radio Engineering and became one of the CIA's top assets, delivering to the Agency tens of thousands of pages of highly classified documents about Soviet radar and other technologies between 1979 and 1985. Asante's most recent film, A United Kingdom, starred David Olyelowo (Spooks/MI-5) and Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day). Benjamin August, who penned Atom Egoyan's 2015 holocaust revenge drama Remember, starring Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau, will write the script. Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) will produce with Walden Media and Weed Road Pictures.

Tradecraft: UK Period Spy Drama JERUSALEM Casts Up, Lands Director

Deadline reports that actors Emma Appleton (The Nun), Michael Stuhlbarg (The Looming Tower, The Shape of Water), Keeley Hawes (Spooks/MI-5), Matt Lauria (Friday Night Lights), and Luke Treadaway (Ordeal by Innocence) have been cast in Channel 4's 6-episode period spy series Jerusalem (no relation to the 2013 contemporary spy movie Jerusalem). As the trade previously reported, Jerusalem, from Boardwalk Empire and Masters of Sex veteran Bash Doran, follows Feef Symonds (Appleton), "a bold 20-something woman who joins the Civil Service in 1945, just as the Labour party sweeps to victory, defeating Winston Churchill in an unexpected landslide. Her ambition to make something of her life goes unrecognized by her family, and is further complicated by her American lover."

"Feef agrees to spy on her own government for the Americans, who have a hidden agenda in making sure England’s burgeoning Socialist ambitions don’t play into Soviet hands. Struggling to work out what she stands for, and what she’s capable of, Feef must learn to think for herself and play by her own rules at a time when knowledge becomes power and nothing and no one is what they seem." Lauria stars as Feef's American lover Peter, Stuhlbarg plays an American zealot named Rowe, Hawes plays Feef’s demanding civil service superior, and Treadaway plays a newly elected Labour MP.

While this setting and these characters have all the makings of a great spy series, they are also personal to the writer, who tells Deadline that Jerusalem is, "my perspective on a defining moment in British history when the nation was divided and there was a fight for Britain’s soul. I left England for America not long after I graduated. This show has always been for me an exploration of why I left and my way of coming home."

In a separate story, Deadline also reports that Dearbhla Walsh has been hired to direct. Walsh has experience helming both U.S. and UK television, including episodes of Penny Dreadful, Fargo, The Punisher, and Shameless. She directed all five episodes of the acclaimed 2008 BBC miniseries Little Dorrit.

No American broadcast partner has yet been announced, but with so many names both in front of and behind the camera known to U.S. audiences, such a deal seems inevitable.

Tradecraft: Danny Boyle in Contention to Direct Bond 25

Variety reports that Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire) is now high on MGM's wish list for directing the next James Bond movie. Boyle, known for his fast-moving, visually stunning films, is no stranger to James Bond. He's actually already directed Daniel Craig as the character in an appearance with the Queen in the opening ceremony to the 2012 London Olympic Games. (I had so hoped the segment would be included on the Skyfall Blu-ray, but alas, it wasn't. This essential part of any complete James Bond film collection is, however, available on the UK BBC DVD London 2012 Olympic Games, but not the American equivalent.) Additionally, the movie that shot Boyle to international fame, Trainspotting (1996) featured characters who loved to talk about James Bond, especially their Edinburgh hometown hero Sean Connery. Much of the Bond discussion came from the character Sick Boy, who was played by Jonny Lee Miller (Elementary), the grandson of original M actor Bernard Lee. The bestselling Trainspotting soundtrack even featured a song by Blur frontman Damon Albarn, "Closet Romantic," whose lyrics consisted solely of Albarn reciting the titles of Sean Connery James Bond movies. So Boyle has quite an arms' length history with Agent 007. He's also been rumored as up for the plum Bond directing gig several times in the past.

According to the trade, "Boyle has keen interest in the project and has always wanted to direct a Bond film. He is currently developing a project for Working Title, but with no cast currently attached, there is always the possibility of pushing that movie back to direct the 25th installment in the series." No formal offer has yet been made, however, and 71 and White Boy Rick director Yann Demange (said to be a favorite of producer Barbara Broccoli) is still in the running as well. Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Blade Runner 2049) previously turned down the Bond 25 assignment in favor of his Dune passion project, and both Skyfall and SPECTRE director Sam Mendes and tabloid favorite Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) have ruled themselves out from helming Daniel Craig's final Bond outing.

As previously reported, the still untitled Bond 25 is set to open November 8, 2019. No distribution partner has yet been named after Sony's co-production deal expired following SPECTRE, but MGM recently struck a wide-ranging distribution deal with Annapurna which could ultimately include Bond 25, but doesn't as of yet.

Park Chan-Wook to Direct le Carré Miniseries THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL, According to Daily Mail

Bart Forbes' frontispiece for the 1983 Knopf limited edition

I don't normally post news items originating in UK tabloids, but this is too dynamite to let pass. And besides, it comes from The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye, who has proven time and again to be the exception to the tabloid rule, and provided many solid scoops in the past. His track record with spy movies (and particularly James Bond) is especially good. According to Bamigboye, the next BBC/AMC John le Carré miniseries production following the enormous success of The Night Manager will be The Little Drummer Girl, based on the author's 1983 novel. Once again, The Ink Factory (le Carré's sons' production company) will produce, and once again they've proven to have impeccable taste when it comes to directors. Bamigboye reports that legendary Korean director Park Chan-Wook will helm! For those of you familiar with the auteur's work, let that sink in and bask in the sheer awesomeness of the possibility. For those of you who don't know, Park, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy helmer Tomas Alfredson, is a master visual stylist. While he has directed a spy-themed movie before, 2000's Joint Security Area, he is better known for his Vengeance Trilogy, which includes his most famous film, Oldboy. He also helmed the stellar and unique vampire tale Thirst, the Hitchcockian English-language suspense film Stoker, and the sublime 2016 erotic con artist thriller The Handmaiden, based on the Sarah Waters novel Fingersmith. (For my money, that one's his masterpiece to date.) I would be excited about any Park Chan-Wook miniseries. And I would be excited (obviously!) about any John le Carré miniseries. Put together, I'm ecstatic! I really, really hope that Bamigboye is on the money this time.

According to the report, British actress Florence Pugh, who shot to fame with this year's Lady Macbeth and will next be seen as Cordelia to Anthony Hopkins' King Lear in a star-studded BBC production, will take on the lead role of Charlie, a naive young actress recruited by Israeli Intelligence into the "theatre of the real"--to infiltrate a Palestinian terror organization. She soon finds herself seduced by both sides and caught in the middle. Bamigboye reports that the 6-part miniseries will shoot in 2018 and retain the novel's late Seventies/early Eighties setting (though the subject matter obviously still rings topical today). The Little Drummer Girl was previously filmed by George Roy Hill as a feature in 1984, starring a notoriously miscast Diane Keaton.

Locations in the novel include London, Mykonos, Munich, Vienna, Bonn and Tel Aviv, but there's no way of knowing at this stage which ones will be used in the miniseries. (Key book locations were changed and omitted from The Night Manager.) Bamigboye does report, however, that Park "intends to make good use of locations."

This is a very, very exciting project that I'll certainly be keeping a close eye on. Let's hope for some official announcements soon!

Thanks to Casey and Clarissa for the heads-up on this one!

Tradecraft: WB Tries Again for a Spy Franchise of Their Own with White Knight

Universal has one with Bourne. Paramount has one with Mission: Impossible. As of this year, Fox now potentially has two with Kingsman and Spy. And of course MGM has the biggest one of all with James Bond. For the time being anyway, Sony shares it. (Sony's co-production deal ended with SPECTRE, and MGM and EON will renegotiate that deal or else find a new partner early next year.) Warner Bros. is the only major studio without a lucrative spy franchise. And they want one—badly. Really badly. It's easy to see why. Paramount, Fox and Sony/MGM each made more than half a billion dollars off of their respective spy franchises this year alone. Warner tried hard this year with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (review here). They continued making big, expensive TV ad buys in its second and third week even after Guy Ritchie's film opened below expectations. And it's a real shame their efforts didn't pay off, because The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was an excellent movie, and has all the makings of an excellent franchise. (Personally, I'm still praying it does well enough on home video to warrant a sequel, but that's admittedly a long shot.) But for whatever reasons, they didn't. So Warner Bros. is still searching for a spy franchise. Next year they'll make a big play for Bond, but obviously they can't rely on that, so they're looking other places as well, especially at filmmakers with whom they have good relationships. One such filmmaker is Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace), whose Johnny Depp gangster pic Black Mass was one of the studio's few hits this year.

Deadline reports that Cooper "is making a deal to rewrite and direct White Knight, a film that gives Warner Bros a potential series in the Bourne Identity/James Bond mold." I assume that's Deadline's roundabout way of saying it's a potential spy franchise. According to the trade, "Cooper will rewrite a script by Bill Dubuque (The Judge) that focuses on a disgraced Secret Service agent. When his relationship with his employer sours, the agent takes a job protecting the family of an arms dealer, putting himself at the center of a global CIA manhunt." "White Knight" was of course James Bond's callsign in Tomorrow Never Dies (and the title of a highly memorable piece of music by David Arnold), so perhaps that bodes well for WB. Then again, I doubt anyone involved in this project realizes that! Of course, if Warner Bros. is successful in their bid for Bond, then I expect interest to dwindle rapidly in this project, and probably all hope to fade completely for an U.N.C.L.E. sequel.

Tradecraft: Susanne Bier to Direct Le Carre Miniseries The Night Manager

According to Deadline, AMC confirmed at their TCA session this week that, as previously reported, they have indeed picked up U.S. and Canadian broadcast rights to the BBC John le Carré miniseries The Night Manager. They also confirmed the roles that the stars will be playing. As I'd assumed, Tom Hiddleston (Marvel's The Avengers) will play hotelier-turned-undercover agent Jonathan Pine, and Hugh Laurie (Spooks/MI-6) will play the charming but despicable millionaire arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper, one of the author's best villains. (And a role in which Laurie should shine.) Additionally, the cable network revealed that acclaimed Danish feature director Susanne Bier (Brothers, In A Better World) will direct the miniseries. While she's never tackled espionage before, Bier may be familiar to spy fans from having directed Casino Royale's Mads Mikkelsen in After the Wedding and Pierce Brosnan in one of his best post-Bond films, the excellent but poorly titled Love Is All You Need. Bier has two features presently in the can and awaiting distribution, A Second Chance with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and The World Is Not Enough's Ulrich Thomsen, and Serena, which re-teams Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. Landing Bier for television is quite a coup. I'm a big fan of her work, and I can't wait to see what she does with the material! I also look forward to further cast announcements, as this is quickly shaping up to be among the most exciting spy projects on the horizon. The Night Manager will run six episodes in the UK, but may be re-cut into eight episodes for America to accommodate commercials on AMC.

Tradecraft: Ed Skrein Replaces Jason Statham in Transporter 4

For a franchise built solely around its original star (well, and his car), the Transporter series (first of EuropaCorp's many neo-Eurospy franchises and movies) has spawned a surprisingly high number of Frank Martins. After Simon Vance already stepped into the role originated by Jason Statham for the Transporter TV series (which is currently in production on its second season, and set to air this fall on TNT), Variety reports that Ed Skrein will take over the role in the film series beginning with Transporter 4. Skrein had a supporting role in The Sweeney in 2012, and that same year starred in his Sweeney co-star Ben Drew's directorial debut, Ill Manors. He played a recurring role on The Tunnel (the UK version of The Bridge), but he's probably best known to American audiences (if he's known at all) from his recurring role as mercenary Daario Naharis on Game of Thrones. (However, he's been replaced by another actor for Season 4.) He's 30 years old, roughly fifteen years Statham's junior. Word has it that Transporter 4 will be something of a prequel, focusing on a younger Frank Martin before he became the man we know from the Statham movies. (Does that mean he won't have established his rules yet? Or will we see him in his Special Forces days, before he even went private to start transporting?) Variety uses the term "reboot." The new movies are not expected to be related to the TV show.

EuropaCorp CEO Christophe Lambert told the trade that the new film (first in a projected trilogy co-produced with China's Fundamental Films) will return Frank to the French Riviera, setting of the first movie (and some of the TV series). He said the writers Bill Collage and Adam Cooper (Tower Heist, Exodus) have "given more depth to the character of Frank Martin." To that end this film will explore his relationship with his father, for whom they're looking for a prominent actor. This will mark the first entry in the series not written by Robert Mark Kamen and EuropaCorp co-founder Luc Besson (also the team responsible for the Taken movies). The trade reports that Camille Delamarre, who edited EuropaCorp's Transporter 3, Taken 2, Colombiana and Lockout, directed second unit on the Transporter series, and made his feature directing debut on Brick Mansions, the company's upcoming English language remake of their French hit District B13, will helm all three new Transporter movies. So far, an American distributor hasn't yet been lined up. (Fox distributed the first two movies, Lionsgate the third.)

Hm. I'm not sure how to feel about this. I'm excited that there will be new Transporter movies, but I really wish they had just stuck with Jason Statham! He is fantastic in that role. I'm also sorry that Besson and Kamen won't be writing it, but I guess every writer probably has only so many stories in him about a guy driving something from one place to another. The injection of fresh blood into the series is kind of exciting, and I hope that the modest $30 million budget (down from Transporter 3's estimated $65 million) will inspire Delamarre to take the series to new levels of practical lunacy. I just hope that "reboot" doesn't automatically mean turning the series darker, as it has for other series. I enjoy these movies for their completely preposterous, totally daffy action, and their tone akin to Roger Moore Bond movies.

Read my review of Transporter 3 here.

Tradecraft: Zhang Yimou to Direct Robert Ludlum's The Parsifal Mosaic for Producer Ron Howard

Wow! Just... wow. This is incredibly exciting news. Deadline reports that not only is the long dormant Robert Ludlum adaptation The Parsifal Mosaic once again happening, but acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou  (Raise the Red Lantern) is now at the helm in his Hollywood debut. Ron Howard, who was previously attached to direct back in 2009, will produce the film along with his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer and Captivate Entertainment's Jeffrey Weiner and Ben Smith. (In 2008, producer Frank Marshall and writer George Nolfi briefly considered adapting The Parsifal Mosaic into the basis for the next Bourne movie. That didn't happen.) Zhang's Raise the Red Lantern was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991. In the last decade, he's demonstrated his action acumen with historical martial arts epics like Hero and House of Flying Daggers. He's taken surprising detours before, like remaking the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple as A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop in 2009. But I don't think anyone expected him to sign onto a Robert Ludlum movie in Hollywood! It's unexpected... but I think the results could potentially be amazing. I can't wait to see! The trade adds that this is the first time a mainland Chinese director has ever signed to make an English language film with an American studio. David Self (Road to Perdition, Thirteen Days) penned the most recent draft of the script for Howard, but it will now undergo another rewrite with Zhang's input.

Ludlum's 1982 novel, considered by many to be one of his best, centers on an Michael Havelok, an American spy drawn out of a voluntary retirement when he sees Jena Karas, the woman he had loved and long believed dead, very much alive. But that's not necessarily a good thing when she was an enemy agent, and he was the reluctant engineer of her death! What follows is the most interesting romance Ludlum ever concocted, a truly twisted tale of myriad betrayals both personal and political. Boy meets girl, girl betrays boy, boy has girl killed, girl comes back to life, girl tries to kill boy... it's the ultimate post-break-up story, perfect for Valentine's Day! How do you tell the ex- you thought you'd killed how badly you want her back? Ludlum's tale was set against a Cold War backdrop and made excellent use of the author's regular European stomping grounds. With Zhang's involvement, I can't help but speculate (without any legitimate grounds to do so) if the updated version might be relocated to the Far East with the Jena character changed from a Russian agent to a Chinese agent? Doubtless Universal wouldn't want to risk alienating the massive Chinese audience by vilifying the Chinese government (and nor would China allow Zhang to direct such a movie), but it's no spoiler to reveal that the true villains of Ludlum's book were not acting on behalf of any government, but fanatical elements within the U.S. and Soviet elite. That scenario would work. To expand this pure speculation to its logical next step, it occurs to me that the actress Zhang Ziyi, who starred in Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers and Hero, would make an excellent Chinese Jena...

Read my review of Ludlum's The Parsifal Mosaic here.

Tradecraft: Transporter Director Boards Sacha Baron Cohen Spy Spoof

Looks like Paramount is serious about that Sacha Baron Cohen spy spoof we first heard about in August. According to Variety, the project now has a title and a director. Louis Leterrier, who made his name directing the first and best of the neo-Eurospy wave with The Transporter (co-directed with Corey Yuen) and Transporter 2, will bring his action experience to the action-comedy Grimsby. Baron Cohen wrote the script with Phil Johnston (Cedar Rapids), and the story follows a Bondian supserspy forced to go on the run with his long-lost brother, a moronic soccer hooligan. As far as I know Baron Cohen has not yet committed to star, but I think it's a safe assumption he means to play at least one of the two brothers if not both. Leterrier most recently directed Baron Cohen's wife, Isla Fisher, in Now You See Me. Apparently Baron Cohen was insistent on landing a director with serious action experience, which would seem to indicate that this action comedy will be heavy on the former, which should separate it from other spy spoofs like Johnny English or Austin Powers. I absolutely love Transporter 2, and I'm excited to see Louis Leterrier return to the action-comedy spy genre.

Director, Cast Changes on Le Carre Adaptation Our Kind of Traitor

I was worried when director Justin Kurzel, previously attached to the film adaptation of John le Carré's 2010 thriller Our Kind of Traitor, committed to a new film of Macbeth earlier this year. What did that mean for Our Kind of Traitor? The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye (via Dark Horizons) reports that the le Carré movie continues to move forward, but with a change at the helm. Producer Simon Cornwell (son of David Cornwell, aka John le Carré) told Bamigboye that Susanna White, who directed the BBC/HBO co-production Parade’s End starring Benedict Cumberbatch, has replaced Kurzel as director of Our Kind Of Traitor. The cast, which at one point was rumored to prospectively include Ewan McGregor (Haywire), Ralph Fiennes (Skyfall), Mads Mikkelson (Casino Royale) and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), seems to also be in flux. While Cornwell says that McGregor is still interested in playing Perry, a disillusioned academic who along with his lawyer girlfriend is drawn into a web of espionage involving MI6 and a Russian gangster, Mikkelson has had to back out of playing the gangster, Dima, due to scheduling issues. (Probably because he stars on the American TV show Hannibal.) That's too bad; he would have been good. But it's such a great, showy role that it's bound to attract an equally great actor! Cornwell also told Bamigboye that they intend to start shooting "in the first half of next year" (of course, we've heard that before) and that writer Hossein Amini (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) was currently revising his script with an eye to bulk up the role of Perry's girlfriend, Gail. "She won’t be Charlie’s Angels," he said, "but she’ll be stronger than in the book." Frankly, I'm surprised to hear the author's son speak so dismissively of the novel's Gail. I thought she was already one of the strongest and best female characters le Carré has ever written, and I really hope they don't change her role too much! Meanwhile, the next le Carre film we'll see in theaters will be Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rachel McAdams, which Lionsgate will release in the U.S.

Tradecraft: Christopher McQuarrie Confirmed to Direct Mission: Impossible 5

This is old news, but still important to catch up on around here since I've been eagerly following the progress of the next Mission: Impossible movie. Christopher McQuarrie, the prolific screenwriter who often does polishes on Tom Cruise movies and has previously directed Way of the Gun and Jack Reacher, has been rumored as the frontrunner to direct Mission: Impossible 5 (or whatever they end up calling it; MI5 certainly doesn't work as an abbreviation!) since last November. Earlier this month, according to Deadline, this was officially confirmed when he tweeted, "Mission: Accepted." What, if anything, this means for McQuarrie's remake of Ice Station Zebra is unknown. (McQuarrie has also been rumored at times to be attached to the Tom Clancy adaptation Without Remorse and to the feature adaptation of the Sixties ITC spy series The Champions, which he told Dark Horizons last December might still happen.) As previously reported, Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) is writing the script for Mission: Impossible 5, and Cruise will once again star. J.J. Abrams is again producing.

It will be interesting to see how McQuarrie follows up on Brad Bird's series-best installment Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Personally, I really, really hope that he continues the journey Bird started towards making the films more like huge budget versions of the TV show. I loved that Ghost Protocol was finally a team movie, like the show, as opposed to a one-man operation focusing on Cruise's super-agent Ethan Hunt. I also loved all the little references to the series that Bird packed into his entry, and I was thrilled by the mission briefing we hear at the film's end about a new terrorist organization calling itself "The Syndicate." I really hope McQuarrie and Pearce use the Syndicate! (As a terrorist organization; not as the Mafia, which it was on the show.) I also hope that they retain the same IMF team from Ghost Protocol of Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Paula Patton. They established a good dynamic last time out, and it would be great to see them build on it. (And while you're at it, guys, please restore Ving Rhames to fully-functioning co-star status!) But above all, what I hope for most from the next Mission: Impossible installment is what I hope for from all of them: I hope that they do something to rehabilitate Jim Phelps' good name. At one point, producer J.J. Abrams had teased the idea of a Peter Graves cameo in Ghost Protocol, but the actor sadly passed away before that could happen. But they could still bring in Leonard Nimoy or Peter Lupus or even Sam Elliott to do a quick cameo and explain that the Phelps they worked with was a national hero, and that jerkwad who assumed his name after he retired turned out to be a real loser. Or something along those lines! (But, you know... better.)

Tradecraft: Darren Aronofsky Mulls Spy Movie Red Sparrow

Let me go on the record as saying I would love to see a Darren Aronofsky spy movie! There's a chance that could happen. According to Deadline, the Black Swan and Requiem For a Dream director is in talks to direct Red Sparrow for Fox. The studio purchased the new novel by former CIA agent Jason Matthews after winning a bidding war in April, prior to its publication. Red Sparrow tells the story of Dominika Egorova, a "sparrow," or trained seductress, working for Russian intelligence in present-day, Putin-controlled Moscow. She's assigned to ensnare CIA wunderkind Nathaniel Nash, the man running America's top mole inside Putin's government. Allegiances shift, moles are uncovered on both sides, and, I'm guessing here, a deadly cat and mouse game probably ensues. That's usually how these things go, and you know I wouldn't have it any other way! I've actually got this book in my stack, and hope to read it soon. When the news broke about its sale to Fox, I immediately thought it sounded like a great vehicle for Olga Kurylenko. I'd love to see that, though should Aronofsky come aboard I suppose it's a definite possibility he might want to re-team with his Oscar-winning Black Swan star, Natalie Portman.

Bond 24 Officially Announced for 2015; Mendes Confirmed to Direct

Yesterday, EON Productions, MGM and Sony jointly announced the official release date and primary creative team for the next James Bond movie, the 24th in the official series. Bond 24 (utilizing the usual working title nomenclature for these films) will open in the United Kingdom on October 23, 2015, and in the USA on November 6. Once again, 007's homeland gets a significant advantage (two whole, unbearable weeks!) on America. As previously speculated, Skyfall director Sam Mendes will return to direct the next Bond adventure, becoming the first director to helm two in a row since John Glen departed the series following Licence to Kill in 1989. (We've known for a while that John Logan, who co-wrote Skyfall, is penning the script, and Daniel Craig will once again star.) Bringing Mendes back meant that EON and the studios had to work around his busy theatrical schedule. The result amounts to another longer than average break between Bond films: three years instead of the standard two. At least that's not as bad as the interminable four years separating Skyfall from Quantum of Solace, but it's still pretty vexing! And at this rate, Craig will be as old as Roger Moore got in the role by the time he's done! Oh well. I loved Skyfall, and I fully expect Mendes to once again deliver the goods. Here's hoping he recruits cinematographer Roger Deakins to retun as well! Deakins shot what may well have been the most beautiful looking Bond film ever in Skyfall, and I'd love to see what he does next with 007's world!

Tradecraft: Cruise Officially Accepts Another Mission; McQuarrie Boards Ice Station Zebra Remake

Deadline reports that Tom Cruise has officially signed on for Mission: Impossible 5—or whatever they end up calling it. That's certainly not a surprising development (especially considering that the last entry, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, set franchise records by grossing almost $700 million worldwide, and garnered some of the series' best reviews), but it does make things official. We already knew that Paramount was keen to do another one, and last we heard frequent Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie (who wrote and directed the Cruise vehicle Jack Reacher) was the top choice to direct. But there's been no official announcement confirming McQuarrie's involvement, and indeed another story in today's trades calls it into question. According to The Hollywood Reporter, McQuarrie has just signed on to take on another iconic Sixties spy title—Warner Bros.' previously announced Ice Station Zebra remake. (The busy writer/director has also long been linked to a third spy project, Paramount's Tom Clancy reboot focusing on the black ops specialist John Clark.) Last we'd heard about that project (which was over a year ago), David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) was writing with an eye to direct, but things must have changed because the trade reports that McQuarrie will now handle both those duties. The original Ice Station Zebra, based on the Alistair MacLean novel, marked a rare starring role in a feature film of that era for consummate Sixties TV secret agent Patrick McGoohan (alongside Jim Brown, Ernest Borgnine and Rock Hudson). Its plot was heavily steeped in the Cold War, and today's trade story makes no mention of whether this new version will retain the period setting or update it, but I would guess the latter. The trade does speculate, however, that "the deal may impact the development of Paramount's Mission: Impossible 5, which McQuarrie is rumored to be the favorite to direct. Cruise is back to star in the action tentpole but there is no clear timetable for either movie project." Well, whoever ends up helming the next Mission: Impossible movie, my primary hope remains that he or she maintains the bright palette and clearly-filmed action sequences Brad Bird brought to the franchise in Ghost Protocol (far and away my favorite of the film series)... and most of all that they continue the closer connection to the TV show established in that installment! (Including the emphasis being on a team rather than an individual agent.) Today's story makes no mention of whether any of Cruise's Ghost Protocol costars were on board, but I really hope to see them all come back.

Meanwhile, as we heard last week, Cruise also remains attached to another movie based on a classic Sixties spy TV show, Warner Bros.' The Man From U.N.C.L.E. But there's still been no official announcement confirming his involvement in that one.