Tradecraft: Jason Statham Joins Melissa McCarthy and Bridesmaids Director on Comedic Female-Driven Spy Franchise

In June, The Wrap (via Dark Horizons) reported that Bridesmaids and The Heat director Paul Feig was plotting a female-driven spy comedy, Susan Cooper, and hoping it had the makings of a franchise. Now Deadline reports that Feig's frequent collaborator Melissa McCarthy is set to star, and the Transporter himself, Jason Statham, is in talks to join her. Feig wrote the script, and described the project to The Wrap as "a two-hander." According to Deadline, Statham will be playing a spy on the same side as McCarthy's titular agent, so perhaps he's the other hand in this comedic spy movie. If so, I'm sold! While I'm always happy to see Statham do his thing, it will be nice to watch him stretch himself a bit with something slightly different. The tough-guy actor actually excels in comedic action movies like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and The Italian Job, though it's been quite a while since he's done one. (Statham also made a cameo appearance in the 2006 version of The Pink Panther.) Feig told The Wrap that Susan Cooper will be "a realistic comedy about a female James Bond" rather than an out and out send-up like Get Smart or Johnny English. He said he was inspired to write the script by the 2006 Casino Royale, which he counts among his favorite movies.

Title Sequence From a Peter Graves Spy Series that Never Was

Watch this credits sequence and tell me this wouldn't have been the best show ever. No! You're wrong. It clearly would have been.




Call to Danger was filmed as a pilot in 1973 for CBS and would have seen Peter Graves follow up his successful run on Mission: Impossible with another spy series. Had the show gone to series, it would have once again seen Graves as a team leader recruiting citizens to spy week after week. He played a government agent who used a supercomputer (those were big at the time) to find ordinary citizens whose unique abilities qualified them to take on specific missions. The premise is indeed similar to the original premise of Mission: Impossible (after seven seasons, it was easy to forget that Willy and Barney and Paris and Cinnamon and the rest of the gang were not meant to be professional spies, but amateurs enlisted for their unique talents), and to the short-lived 1980s spy series Masquerade, with Rod Taylor. It was also more or less the premise of Warren Ellis' popular comic book series Global Frequency, which was filmed twice as a pilot (the second time with 24's Michelle Forbes) but never went to series. Apparently this concept lends itself well to multiple interpretations, because the Call to Danger pilot was actually filmed three times!

A half-hour version in 1961 starred Larry Blyden in essentially the same premise. According to Patrick J. White in his essential Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier, producer Perry Lafferty described it by saying, "If you had perfect pitch, could speak Spanish, and ride a unicycle, you'd be in this computer bank. When there was some kind of situation they couldn't solve with their own personnel, they would go to this computer agency and see if any of these people could match their plan." Though the half-hour version didn't sell, the concept was revamped as an hour-long black and white pilot in 1966, produced by Paul King and starring Graves. (You can see the opening credits for that one, with a theme by Hawaii Five-0's Morton Stevens, at 4:05 in this video.) That version didn't sell, either, but it was his performance in that pilot that landed Graves his starring role on the second season of Mission: Impossible! And when the handwriting appeared to be on the wall for Mission after seven seasons, this third attempt was commissioned, again starring Graves and this time written and produced by Mission: Impossible's Laurence Heath. As it happened, Mission: Impossible was cancelled, but sadly Call to Danger wasn't picked up. CBS ended up airing the third Call to Danger pilot as a TV movie in 1973. Man, what I wouldn't give today to have another Peter Graves spy series to work through on DVD! In some alternate dimension, Graves kept right on spying on the Syndicate throughout the Seventies.

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.

Hilarious A View To A Kill Video

This first came to my attention a few years ago via a memberon the CBn forums (Trevelyan 006). I meant to post the link then, but somehow never got around to it. Since then I've watched A View To A Kill twice (it's probably the Bond I watch the least often after Quantum of Solace), and every time I see it now I can't help but flash back to this video and laugh. Intrepid video editor m0gdred has made a particularly dated scene from that movie featuring Christopher Walken and Roger Moore quite hilarious. Enjoy.

Tradecraft: Dylan McDermott Joins Survivor

The other day we heard about Survivor, a new spy movie starring Milla Jovovich, Emma Thompson, Angela Bassett and Pierce Brosnan. Now Deadline reports that Dylan McDermott (The Grid, Olympus Has Fallen, Hostages) has landed the male lead in the film. Hm. It's too bad they couldn't have found someone a little bigger. That somewhat dilutes an otherwise stellar cast. Oh well. I'm still excited for this one. Survivor is written by spy novelist Philip Shelby and directed by V for Vendetta's James McTeigue.

Archer Flies Into the Danger Zone

I suppose it was in some way inevitable, yet I never saw it coming. Those magnificent bastards at the brilliant FX animated spy comedy Archer have created this Archerized version of Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" video from the Top Gun soundtrack. And, of course, it is awesome. This was made for the Archer presentation at the New York Comic Con this weekend, but FX were kind enough to share it with the world to help tide us over until January, when Archer returns with a new season.

Young Bond Returns in 2014

It's been a big week or two for fans of the literary 007! Yesterday, William Boyd's James Bond continuation novel Solo (set in 1968) was published in the United States (after debuting in the UK a few weeks ago), and today Ian Fleming Publications announced that the Young Bond spin-off series (targeted at Young Adult readers) will resume in 2014 under the stewardship of a new author! Between 2005 and 2008, author Charlie Higson penned five novels for IFP (beginning with Silverfin) about the adventures of James Bond as a boy, long before he ever became a spy. Since Higson was working in the timeline of Fleming's novels (originally published in the 1950s and 60s), these boyhood adventures took place in the early 1930s while the future 007 was a student at Eton. This premise, clearly designed to cash in on the young adult fiction boom that came in the wake of Harry Potter's success, seemed ludicrous to many Bond fans when it was first announced, myself included. But somewhat improbably, Higson pulled it off with astonishing success. His novels were highly enjoyable, respectful of the original Bond canon, and huge hits in the UK. One thing we always knew about Bond's childhood, thanks to the obituary M writes in Fleming's You Only Live Twice, was that he was kicked out of Eton after an "incident" involving a maid. Higson's Eton-set series, therefore, was headed inexorably towards that moment, and sure enough, in his final volume, By Royal Command, James Bond is expelled from Eton.

The new series, therefore, will pick up after that, presumably following the teenage James to Fettes. According to IFP's press release, Random House will publish a quartet of brand new Young Bond adventures starting in fall of 2014. Unfortunately Charlie Higson isn't back for this round. Instead the new Young Bond novels will be written by Steve Cole. Cole is the author of the Atrosaurs books (a children's series I'm not familiar with, evidently geared towards younger readers than the Young Bond novels), as well as several Doctor Who tie-ins and, most relevantly, a teen spy series called Tripwire (the latter co-written with Chris Hunter). According to IFP, he is also a lifelong fan of Fleming's Bond novels. Here's a quote from Cole along with some pertinent details from the press release:

‘I first encountered Bond in print as a teenager, when I read "From a View to a Kill." Fleming´s writing was so vivid and authentic, Bond and the world he inhabited seemed suddenly real to me – and the danger and glamour led me through book after book. It´s both a thrilling privilege and an exciting challenge now to be shaping a new era in the life of such an iconic character – with many firsts and surprises to come as James´s life in the dangerous 1930s develops.’Cole’s first Young Bond novel will launch with a bang in Autumn 2014. It will be published in hardback on RHCP’s highly respected Jonathan Cape children’s imprint.

So these ones will all be published in hardcover in the UK. Higson's first three books debuted as paperback originals before switching to hardcover with the fourth book, Hurricane Gold. (Though the first three were subsequently reprinted in hardcover limited editions.) Those were published by Penguin children's imprint Puffin in Britain, and by Miramax/Hyperion in the United States. No U.S. publisher has yet been named for the new quartet of Young Bond novels. Well.... here's hoping Steve Cole has what it takes to live up to Higson's superb start! I can't wait to find out. (And in the meantime, I've just ordered the first book in the Tripwire series for a taste of his spy style!)

Read my review of Higson's third Young Bond novel, Double of Die, here.
Read my review of Higson's fourth Young Bond novel, Hurricane Gold, here.
Read my review of Higson's fifth Young Bond novel, By Royal Command, here.
Read my review of The Young Bond Rough Guide to London here.

Tradecraft: Busy Pierce Brosnan Spies Another Day

It looks like there will be more espionage in Pierce Brosnan's future after The November Man! Deadline reports that the former Bond star is among the impressive ensemble cast of Survivor, a new spy thriller directed by James McTeigue (V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin). Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element) stars as "a State Department employee newly posted to the American embassy in London where she is charged with stopping terrorists from getting into the U.S." She quickly finds herself at the center of an international conspiracy. Discredited and framed for crimes she didn't commit, and pursued by assassins, she's forced to go on the run and attempt to clear her name while preventing a large-scale terrorist attack on New York's Times Square New Year's Eve celebration. I love it! The plot sounds very, very Ludlumy. (Particularly similar to The Aquitaine Progression.) Hm, perhaps that's no coincidence. Irwin Winkler, who is currently adapting Ludlum's The Sigma Protocol, produces, with Charles Winkler, and Phil Shelby wrote the script. Could this be the same Philip Shelby who penned some of the Ludlum-inspired Covert One novels? (That's a paperback series published under the Ludlum brand with his name splashed across the cover in huge letters even over a decade after his death, but written, obviously, by other authors.) I wonder. Brosnan and his Love Punch co-star Emma Thompson round out the cast, along with Angela Bassett (Alias). I absolutely loved one McTeigue movie so far, V for Vendetta, but felt quite the opposite way about his follow-up, Ninja Assassin (review here). Hopefully he'll be in V form for Survivor! Shooting is scheduled to get underway January 20 in London.

Before then, Brosnan will shoot The Coup in Thailand, with cameras scheduled to finally roll later this month on a project we first heard about over a year ago which was originally supposed to film last fall. Owen Wilson stars in that one, as a father trying to get his family to safety when the Southeast Asian country they're living in erupts in a violent coup. Brosnan plays some sort of mysterious government operative... and you know I love it when Brosnan plays government operatives! Lake Bell joined the cast this week as well, according to The Hollywood Reporter. At some point between those two movies, Brosnan will also find time to squeeze in the dark comedy How to Make Love Like an Englishman, in which he plays a womanizing professor who finally meets his match. His After the Sunset co-star Salma Hayak just signed on this week to play that match (according to Deadline); Jessica Alba and Kristen Scott-Thomas also star. And some time in the future (presumably after Survivor), Brosnan will also star (Deadline reported last week) in I.T., a thriller he's co-producing through his company Irish DreamTime for Voltage Pictures. In that one, Pierce plays a successful book publisher who finds himself the target of a young disgruntled I.T. consultant who uses his tech savvy to ruin the publisher's life. Meanwhile, the busy Brosnan has two other films already wrapped and awaiting release (the aforementioned Love Punch and A Long Way Down, which reunites him with his Die Another Day co-star Rosamund Pike), made a scene-stealing surprise appearance in one of this summer's best comedies (due out on DVD this fall), and starred in the really wonderful Swedish romantic dramady Love Is All You Need, which just came out in America on DVD and Blu-ray. (Seriously, check this one out. It's surprisingly good.) And he found time to star in a Bondian pictorial (pictured) promoting fall 2013 menswear for Hackett of London shot by frequent 007 photographer Terry O'Neill! (That's also worth checking out, as it finally pairs a modern Bond with a modern Bentley, a match I've wanted to see for years.) Whew! That's quite an active schedule. Go Pierce!

Tradecraft: ABC Developing New Female Spy Series Clandestine

Once again this year, there are a lot of spy pilots flying around the networks these days! (Bear in mind as always with pilots this time of year, few of them will actually be shot, and fewer still will make it to series come next fall.) The latest, according to Deadline, is a female-led spy series at ABC (where the ultimate female-led spy series, Alias, aired for five seasons last decade) from producer Melissa Rosenberg (The Agency, Twilight) and writer Matthew Sand (Ninja Assassin). The trade blog reports that "Clandestine takes a look into the CIA world through the perspective of an unlikely asset: the hard-partying daughter of the American ambassador to the UK. As her work grows more dangerous, she discovers skills and talents no one ever thought she possessed — especially not her father, from whom she is keeping a dark secret." I love the premise! And while I know a lot of spy fans will no doubt roll their eyes at the Twilight connection, bear in mind that Rosenberg is actually an old hand at TV, with producing credits including short-lived spy drama The Agency as well as Dexter, The O.C. and a personal favorite of mine, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. I'm rooting for this one!

Trailer for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Well, how do you like that? This makes three Tom Clancy-related posts in a row. (Granted, one of them was relating very sad news.) After sitting tight on it all summer, Paramount has finally begun the publicity push for its Jack Ryan reboot, which the studio hopes will re-launch the iconic Nineties spy franchise for the modern age. Yesterday we saw the poster, and today we have the trailer for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.



Well, that was... hm. What was that? It's really hard for me to separate the action from the character, but I get the feeling that if it were a trailer for a new Chris Pine spy movie with no baggage, I'd be really into it. But a Jack Ryan movie? It doesn't really feel like that to me. There's a lot I find appealing in this trailer, but it doesn't have any of the stuff I really associate with that franchise. No techies staring at satellite imagery, no fetishistic beauty shots of military hardware, no political shouting matches. Instead, it looks like someone yelled, "Make a movie with Jack Ryan in Casino Royale. With lots of Bourne stuff, too!" Now, anyone who regularly reads this blog will know that I love Casino Royale, and I love Bourne stuff. So in general I'd have no problem with that. But... it's really not Jack Ryan. Mr. Clark was Jack Ryan's "dark side" in the Clancy novels, and he was the one who took care of this sort of thing. Ryan himself was more cerebral. He was an analyst and a strategist, and that made it more interesting when he did find himself in risky situations. Last year we heard that Paramount planned to develop simultaneous Clark and Ryan franchises, and have Kevin Costner's character as a Nick Fury-like link between the two leading up to them eventually meeting and teaming up, following the Marvel model. But based on this Ryan trailer, I can't imagine that the Clark movie would be different enough to register as its own animal.

But, of course, this is a reboot, and specifically a cinematic reboot. The Bourne of the movies bears very little resemblance to the Bourne of the books, yet the movies became huge hits, so why should Paramount feel anymore beholden to the literary source material than Universal did? I guess the key to enjoying this movie will be to go into it expecting a whole new thing, and to leave all Jack Ryan preconceptions at the door. (Obviously this doesn't work as a prequel to The Hunt for Red October, since that Jack Ryan certainly hadn't been forced to "go operational" years prior!) I didn't like Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity the first time I saw it because I brought too much baggage from my love of the books. While I'd still like to see the book Bourne filmed faithfully one day, I've since learned to enjoy the Matt Damon movies (and enjoy them quite a lot!) for what they are. I will try to bear the same thing in mind when seeing Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. (Plus, it is pretty cool to see Kevin Costner as some sort of Smiley-type!) As of now, it's scheduled to open Christmas Day.

PS: Also, it's kind of funny that Casino Royale reset not only James Bond but the spy genre at large so thoroughly that whereas after Dr. No the quintessential spy imagery was a sophisticated agent in a suit arriving at an exotic international airport (that's the scene that every imitator took, not the 007's iconic casino introduction), now apparently the quintessential spy imagery is a gritty fight in a men's room.

Jack Ryan Reboot Poster

Where there is death, there is rebirth. Following today's sad news of author Tom Clancy's passing, Paramount has unveiled the first poster for the new movie that aims to reboot Clancy's signature character, CIA analyst Jack Ryan. As Deadline first reported, the new film is entitled Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. That doesn't sound remotely like a Clancy title to me, which is too bad. The film is not based on any existing Clancy novel, but is said to find its inspiration in the clues the author provided about Ryan's past in The Hunt for Red October and other books. (Except I'm pretty sure the CIA analyst described in that novel hadn't already been in a situation that required him to carry a firearm in Moscow...)

I'm honestly quite excited for this movie, which is directed by Kenneth Branagh and co-stars Branagh, Kevin Costner and Keira Knightley (what, she doesn't rate a poster mention?), but I have to say I don't like this poster one bit. I suppose the point is to evoke the equally unimpressive campaign for Pine's other big Paramount hit this year, Star Trek Into Darkness? Whatever, it's only a poster. We should get a better sense of what the movie itself will be like when Paramount unleashes the first trailer tomorrow at 7:30 Eastern/4:30 Pacific on Yahoo! I hope the film does well by Tom Clancy's legacy.

R.I.P. Tom Clancy

Numerous outlets, including Deadline and The New York Times, are reporting the death of author Tom Clancy at the age of 66 following a brief illness. Clancy was one of the biggest names in spy fiction—certainly one of the genre’s bestsellers in the Eighties and Nineties. He was also one of the indisputable founding fathers of the modern genre dubbed the “techno-thriller,” well-researched page turners based on cutting edge technological concepts. (The techno-thriller and spy thriller genres often dovetail, as they did in Clancy’s books.) Clancy was the creator of one of the most recognizable spy franchise characters of modern times, CIA analyst Jack Ryan. Ryan first appeared in Clancy’s 1984 Cold War classic The Hunt for Red October, the first work of contemporary fiction ever to be published by the Naval Institute Press. (The initial print run was just 5,000 copies, and in the mid-Nineties, this was one of the most desirable modern first editions out there.) Part of what made the book such a success was its impressively accurate technical details, which won the author many fans among the U.S. military and intelligence establishment. Like Ian Fleming before him, Clancy got a huge boost in sales when an American president endorsed his work. Ronald Reagan told White House reporters that he was losing sleep because he couldn’t put down The Hunt for Red October, calling it “my kind of yarn.”

Red October was followed by other thick Jack Ryan thrillers, including Patriot Games, The Cardinal of the Kremlin (my favorite), Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears. These giant, daunting literary bricks were such a part of Eighties and Nineties pop culture that it’s impossible to imagine a Waldenbooks or B. Dalton of my childhood without picturing them prominently displayed in the front of the store. They were intrinsic to my own discovery of the spy genre when I was in middle school. Many hundreds of pages long and often weighing more than all my textbooks combined (in hardcover, anyway), each new Clancy book I read was a challenge to be conquered. Yet despite their dense technological details, they moved quickly and (in those days) always proved a rewarding read. The dense technical data was never boring, because Clancy made it exciting! Reading a Clancy novel, I always felt like I was privy to fascinating top secret information about high-tech weaponry and the inner workings of our military and intelligence services. Honestly, learning about submarine warfare and sniper skills and satellite technology was as thrilling and sometimes even as suspenseful as the roller coaster plots that Clancy concocted. (Some of those plots proved harrowingly prescient, particularly terrorists’ use of airliners to attack America in Debt of Honor.) I loved those novels, and I find it hard to believe that now all three of my favorite thriller writers of my youth are dead before their time: Ludlum, Crichton and now Clancy.

Tom Clancy’s cultural impact was not limited to the bestseller lists. He was also a trailblazer in videogames. His second novel, Red Storm Rising (chronicling WWIII), formed the basis for a war game the author was actively involved in developing, and in the Nineties he co-founded his own videogame company, Red Storm Entertainment (subsequently subsumed by Ubisoft). Clancy lent his name and expertise to three extremely successful Ubisoft series, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. As in his fiction, he insisted on a high level of technical accuracy in these games, and reportedly that realism led to the military actually using some of them in training.

Clancy also made his mark on film and television. The Hunt for Red October was made into a superb movie by John McTiernan in 1990 starring Sean Connery as Soviet sub captain Marko Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan. With James Bond out of commission for half the decade, Jack Ryan became the cinematic spy hero of the Nineties, played by Harrison Ford in two further films (both directed by Philip Noyce), Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. The latter Ford film also introduced movie audiences to Clancy’s other primary hero, Black Ops mastermind John Clark, played by Willem Dafoe. The series was rebooted in the early 2000s with Ben Affleck playing a younger Ryan at the start of his career in The Sum of All Fears, and will be rebooted again later this year with Chris Pine playing Ryan at an even earlier point in his career, if that makes sense. I enjoyed the movies (well, except for Sum), but as a teenager felt frustrated that they never seemed to do the books justice. (How could they, cramming that many pages into a standard theatrical running time?) Clancy himself was often the most outspoken critic of the movies based on his books.

Even though miniseries would seem the perfect medium to adapt Clancy’s books, only two were made: Tom Clancy’s OP Center (1995), starring Harry Hamlin, and Tom Clancy’s NetForce (1999), starring Scott Bakula. It was reported in late 2011 that Clancy was working on a new TV series about Homeland Security. I was excited by the prospect, and I hope it might still see the light of day.

The most controversial way in which Clancy impacted the publishing industry was by turning his name into a brand, and that brand into a cottage industry. He lent his name to numerous series of paperback originals (some of which were tied in with videogames or miniseries), including Tom Clancy’s Net Force, Tom Clancy’s Op-Center, Tom Clancy’s Power Plays, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. But despite his name being by far the largest thing on the cover, the actual books were written by other authors. While some of those authors were quite talented in their own right (including James Bond continuation author Raymond Benson), it seemed a bit disingenuous to market their books as something they weren’t. But there’s no arguing with the financial success of the model. While consumers might have the right to gripe, publishers loved the results. Soon, Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler, James Patterson and others were following the same formula. (It’s proven very lucrative for the Ludlum estate, enabling them to keep publishing new material with the late author’s name splashed across the cover for more than a decade after his death, and will no doubt do the same for Clancy’s heirs.) In later years, Clancy even started turning over his signature Jack Ryan series to ghost writers, co-writing recent novels with Grant Blackwood and Mark Greaney. (There’s much debate among fans over how much co-writing Clancy actually did, as the author’s signature attention to detail certainly dwindled. It certainly seemed as if his heart was no longer in it, even in the last books he wrote on his own.)

Even without his numerous spin-off series, Tom Clancy’s legacy is assured. His early Jack Ryan books are bona fide classics of the genre, and Ryan himself will live on for as long as spy novels are read. This December will see the publication of a new Jack Ryan novel co-wrtitten with Greaney, Command Authority, as well as the long-awaited cinematic reboot of the character in Kenneth Brannagh’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (Deadline’s obituary is the first place I’ve seen that title), starring Chris Pine. (Though there are rumors that Paramount may push the movie to next spring.) But beyond Jack Ryan, Clancy’s impact will be forever felt in the works of new authors and screenwriters he inspired. Like Ian Fleming and John le Carré, Tom Clancy forever changed the genre, and every techno-thriller author to come will owe him a debt of honor.

TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Pilot (2013)

“What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?” asks S.H.I.E.L.D. honcho Maria Hill (guest star Cobie Smulders, familiar to audiences from playing the role in Marvel’s The Avengers). And this brief exchange isn’t just in there for the sake of exposition. It is a crucial bit of exposition, of course, at the beginning of a show called Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. designed to appeal to far broader audiences than ever picked up an issue of Jim Steranko’s groundbreaking 1960s run on the comic book Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but it also serves to brilliantly set the tone for executive producer Joss Whedon’s take on the concept. Whedon, who also directed the Marvel Avengers movie, directs the pilot episode of the series, and co-writes with Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen.

“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” replies the vaguely Bondian super-agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), who we’ve just watched retrieve a MacGuffin (a Chitauri neural link, for those who care) from a bad guy’s Parisian apartment while taking enough time to flirt with the villain’s lingerie-clad mistress and dispatch a team of thugs before dangling from a helicopter to make his escape over the rooftops of the City of Lights. There’s the exposition, telling people what, exactly, they’re watching. (And reminding long-term fans that the acronym’s meaning has changed over the years.) Except… well, that’s really no answer, is it? What are audiences to make of that assembly of non sequiturs? Agent Hill presses further.

“And what does that mean to you?”

“It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he responds. pausing before adding more seriously, “It means we’re the line. Between the world… and the much weirder world. We protect people from news they aren’t ready to hear. And when we can’t do that, we keep them safe.” And so the exchange serves to set the tone for the whole series. This is a S.H.I.E.L.D. series, fully subscribing to both the premise of the comics (an U.N.C.L.E.-like espionage agency taken to comic book extremes, tasked with taking on super powers and super science that would be laughable in a Bond movie), but it’s also a Joss Whedon series (he previously created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly), self-aware and referential, with a clear sense of humor even in the face of inevitable tragedy. (Whedon loves tragedy.) It’s a Whedon take on S.H.I.E.L.D. As a fan of both, I found it difficult to reconcile the two based on the somewhat schizophrenic promos for the series, but that one exchange makes it entirely clear to me what that will be like, and that it will work.  

Whedon’s sense of humor (apparently shared with his co-writers) elevates the entire pilot episode, and clearly differentiates this acronym show from the CBS acronym shows like CSI and NCIS in all their iterations. Yes, those shows have humor too, but not the Whedonesque brand of postmodern, self-deprecating humor. Interestingly, rather than distancing the show from the comics, as I feared that style of humor might do, it serves to make the show feel more like a comic book. Everything in this world is heightened—the jokes as well as the action—and that’s exactly as it should be.

Hill is interviewing Agent Ward because he has been selected to be on a new mobile task force whose purview includes all the new superheroics and alien technology popping up around the world after the apocalyptic events of Marvel’s The Avengers (generally referred to as “the Battle of New York”). He’s not happy about it. “Why was I pulled out of Paris?” he demands.

“That you’ll have to ask Agent Coulson,” Hill replies. Coulson, filmgoers will recall, is the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent created specifically for the movies, who first popped up in Iron Man (2008). Since then, the fan-favorite character played by Clark Gregg has gone on to appear in Iron Man 2, Thor, various Marvel short films, and, of course, the Whedon-directed megahit Marvel’s The Avengers. And in the last one (spoiler alert, for the two readers who still haven’t seen that movie), he died. Audiences know that, and so does Grant.

“Uhh, yeah,” he says. “I’m clearance Level 6.  I know that Agent Coulson was killed in action, before the Battle of New York. Got the full report.”

At that point, Coulson himself emerges from the darkness and intones, “Welcome to Level 7.”  Here another show might queue the bombastic music and go to commercial, but Whedon being Whedon adds a comedic zinger, explaining the dramatic entrance. “Sorry, that corner was really dark and I couldn’t help myself,” Coulson explains apologetically. “I think there’s a bulb out.”

The rest of Coulson’s hand-picked unit includes ace pilot Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), who’s clearly no stranger to combat, either, and geeky tech duo “Fitzsimmons,” which really refers to male nerd Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and his inseparable female counterpart Jenna Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge). Their first mission is to track down and hopefully aid a new superhero who’s just popped up in Los Angeles, dubbed by the papers “the Hooded Hero” and played by Angel’s J. August Richards. To do that, they’ll need to enlist the aid of a sexy, sassy-but-slightly-vulnerable female “hacktivist” (oh how I hate that word!) Skye (Chloe Benett). Over the course of the pilot she’ll go from wanting to expose the secret government agency through her one-woman Anonymous-like “organization,” The Rising Tide, to becoming their newest recruit.

The Hooded Hero turns out to have a connection to this summer’s Marvel blockbuster Iron Man Three, and his storyline proves a very effective dress form on which to hang the character interactions that serve as the fabric of the pilot. I was impressed with the relative ease with which Whedon & Co. managed to work an introduction to the world, introductions to a whole slew of characters, seeds for ongoing plotlines, and a mission-of-the-week story into one cohesive narrative. At this they succeed better than many pilots. 

Those characters are clearly meant to be the series’ heart, though, and for the moment they remain its most problematic aspect. From the pilot alone, I’m not sure who’s meant to be the lead. I presume that it will be Skye, but while Bennett is a very appealing actress, she’s probably the most hackneyed character of the batch, a Standard Whedon Type. It also struck me as a bit odd to have two young, white, brunette female geeks on the show, the science geek Simmons and the computer geek Skye. So far they seem quite similar, and of the two, Henstridge’s Simmons scored a much bigger impact.

But perhaps the lead is supposed to be Coulson. He’s the recognizable face right now, and certainly afforded the most on-screen awe in the way he’s shot and talked about—and possibly in screentime too. But what made that character work so well in the movies was, as a friend of mine put it, that he was completely square. He was the quintessential faceless government agent, and the humor came from the fact that as the films proceeded, he was given a face—a very likable face, in fact.  But likable works better in small doses in movies than it does as the agent in charge on a S.H.I.E.L.D. show.  Comics readers are used to having Nick Fury in charge, and though the cigar-chomping, eye-patched “S.H.I.E.L.D. ramrod” (as Stan Lee dubbed him in his inimitable and incessant word-packed caption bubbles) may have started out as more caricature than character, there’s no denying his utter gravitas. Samuel L. Jackson plays a version of Fury more based on Marvel’s Ultimate line of comics from this century (which was in turn based on Jackson himself, making it an easy enough part for him to play) than on the Sixties hero, but there’s no denying his gravitas either. An organization like S.H.I.E.L.D. needs a Nick Fury, and Coulson doesn’t fit the bill. For one thing, Gregg smiles way too much to be a “ramrod!”

Or perhaps Ward is meant to be the lead in this ensemble. He’s the one we’re first introduced to, in a nifty little mini-movie that showcases the heightened espionage action of the S.H.I.E.L.D. world. (I really appreciated that like the David Goyer-penned telefilm of a decade-and-a-half prior, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. really goes for that blend of espionage and super-science, rather than just settling for being an X-Files-style paranormal investigation squad.) And he’s the closest thing to a ramrod in the bunch. (Well, actually Melinda May has that potential, too, but we don’t see enough of her in the pilot to know for sure.) But Dalton seems a bit too unsure of himself in the role, so far, to be leading man material. (He excels, however, when afforded a chance at light comedy thanks to a truth serum. For me, the comedy always worked in this pilot.)

So we’re left with a S.H.I.E.L.D. in need of a Nick Fury, but given the unlikelihood of luring movie star Jackson to television, that was always the challenge. (Though I fully expect him to cameo at some point.) My friend pondered the point of a superspy show without superspies, but I think Whedon and his cohorts have adopted an interesting alternative take. This is the rare spy show that has more Marshalls than Sydneys, more Q’s than 007’s. What are we to make of all these nerds running around? Well, in this geek-chic/Wiki-leak era of nerds as heroes, perhaps that’s precisely the right take for our time. Given how much I like the framework and the humor, I’m certainly willing to go with them on this ride and see how it pans out, though I really would like a clear ramrod for all these geeks to support.

Futuristic, out-there spy-tech has always been a hallmark of S.H.I.E.L.D., since you could get away with a lot more out-there concepts in a comic book than you could on the big screen (Bond) or television (U.N.C.L.E.). With no budgetary constraints, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and especially Jim Steranko were able to create crazy gadgets that Q could only dream of. So how do those gadgets which owe their very existence to “you can’t do this on television” imaginations fare when finally translated, five decades later, to television? Foremost among those incredible creations of the Sixties was the mobile S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, a massive flying aircraft carrier dubbed the helicarrier which hovered high above the earth. Since the helicarrier was superbly realized in Whedon’s Avengers movie, I was hoping we might see it on TV as well. The CG models were already made, and perhaps they’d saved some standing interior sets. Sadly, there’s no sign of the helicarrier in the pilot. Instead, this unit uses a huge black transport plane as its mobile base of operations. (Oddly, it’s emblazoned with a huge S.H.I.E.L.D. logo, as are their Hummers, which seems strangely conspicuous for a secret spy agency!) Logo aside, the plane actually makes a lot of sense, given that it only needs to convey a small group of people, not all of S.H.I.E.L.D. (It’s also pretty impressive in itself for a TV budget.) Other S.H.I.E.L.D. tech fares well, overall. Ward utilizes some cool spy gadgets in his caper at the beginning, and Fitzsimmons have their own array of future-tech they use to investigate the scene of an explosion. But the best of all comes at the episode’s conclusion. [Minor SPOILERS follow!] Agent Coulson drives a red ’62 Corvette convertible. Other characters make fun of him for clinging to an antique, but in the final moments of the pilot, he demonstrates just how cool an antique can be when he pushes a button on the console and (Steranko and Kirby fans will see this coming), the wheels fold horizontally out of the wheel wells, becoming hover platforms, and the car lifts off and zips away toward the camera!

I’ll be honest.  All I really wanted out of a S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series was to see that Kirby concept of a flying spy car realized on screen, and it’s realized beautifully. (Nick Fury’s Sixties hovercar was a Porsche 907, and later hovercars in the comics have paid blatant homage to the vehicle that inspired their forebear by using Aston Martin bodies, but the classic ‘Vette works just fine for me!) I actually clapped out loud, alone in my living room, when that happened. And then I rewatched the scene several more times. I want the toy! Whatever minor quibbles I had with the show up till then, I was completely sold in that moment, and am eagerly on board for the rest of the season. I just hope ABC has the budget to give us an awesome flying car chase during Sweeps.

For a less favorable opinion on the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot from a man who has more right to criticize it than anyone else in the world, you can read a review at The Hollywood Reporter by Jim Steranko himself! I do agree with most of his points, though they didn’t diminish the overall impact of the show for me. In an incredible coup for THR, Steranko (who has recently become a Twitter superstar) will be providing weekly Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. recaps at the trade site. Based on the first one, Marvel should really consider hiring him as a consultant for the series! (He’s given a special thanks at the end, along with Ultimates creators Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are also given credit up front for creating the comic book concept.) Of course thanks to THR, they’ll be able to read his characteristically candid advice for free every week (that must be daunting for the writers!), so maybe they’re better off saving the dough for that flying car chase….

ABC will re-air the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot on Thursday, September 26 at 8pm EST.

Tradecraft: Fox Buys Sheldon Turner Conspiracy Thriller Pilot Frayed

Deadline reports that Fox has bought a conspiracy thriller pilot written by Up In the Air scribe Sheldon Turner. The show is based on a pair of Dutch miniseries Bellicher and Bellicher: Cell, which were in turn based on a popular trilogy of Dutch thrillers by Charles den Tex. (The books have not yet been translated into English.) According to the trade blog, Frayed "centers on an arrogant and entitled corporate consultant who gets embroiled in a grand conspiracy that forces him to go on the run. As his entire life unravels, he’ll come to realize that the only man who can help him is a perpetually paranoid and possibly delusional former NSA agent." Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reports that paranoid Seventies thrillers like The Conversation, The Parallax View and Three Days Of The Condor serve as touchstones for Turner on this project. Good touchstones!

More Intel on the Format of the Reconstituted 24

Fox Chairman of Entertainment Kevin Reilly offered  further information on the exact format of the all-new, back from the dead, reconstituted incarnation of 24 (entitled 24: Live Another Day) returning next year to Fox. We already knew the network's signature real-time action series would be back as a 12-episode miniseries rather than a 24-episode season, but how would that change the one hour of TV equals one hour of real time daylong scenario? Reilly told Crave Online (via Dark Horizons) that the story would still unfold over the course of the day, but certain hours would be skipped. Producer Howard Gordon clarified that scenario for the website previously, saying, "We’ll keep it a 24 hour story but we’ll tell 7-8, 8:15-9:15, 10-11 and then skip 3 hours if we need to. I think it’s going to actually make us not have to do the pretzel logic of some of the stuff." That sounds like an excellent plan to me. Not only did it always take me out of the action a bit whenever Jack Bauer managed to get from one side of L.A. to the other in less than the duration of a single episode in the middle of the day (an impossible feat given this city's traffic), but I felt like the seasons always sagged in the middle as the writers struggled to fill out the day. There would generally be a slam-bang beginning and a terrific conclusion, but in the middle things tended to drag a bit and we were stuck with situations like Kim being menaced by a cougar. Reilly, apparently, felt the same way, explaining that the miniseries format will provide the patented 24 experience we want without stretching the story too thin.

"Howard has always said, he always had 12 great ones, it was the next 12 that used to kill them.” Now that shouldn't be an issue. Not only that, but with the ability to skip hours of travel time, the new format opens up the series to more international locations. "This is going to be set in an international setting," Reilly told Crave. "They’ve got great ideas. I love doing it this way. I have been really heartened by the amount of equity left in the show. I am stopped by fans all the time, thanking me for bringing it back." Great! I can't wait to see Jack Bauer tearing it up overseas! That's what I was hoping for from the 24 movie that never got off the ground. It would be great to see a new 24 "event series" every summer for years to come, with Jack in a different international city each season.

In addition to Kiefer Sutherland, The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Mary Lynn Rajskub will also be back, reprising her fan-favorite role as Chloe, Jack's indispensable CTU support tech, without whom he couldn't have foiled half the terrorist plots he managed to foil, or opened up half the sockets he managed to open. ("Open up a socket, Chloe!" was one of Jack's favorite things to whisper-yell into his cell phone.) So far, those two are the only familiar faces to be cast in 24: Live Another Day, and Reilly says the rest of the cast will probably be filled out with new characters. I don't know; I think they need to bring back Tony Almeida, too...

Tradecraft: Katherine Heigl CIA Show Lands at NBC

Deadline reports that the untitled Katherine Heigl spy show we heard about last month has found a network home at NBC. (NBC had been the expected frontrunner to win a bidding war for the project.) The trade blog reports that the show "stars Heigl as a key CIA analyst whose job it is to debrief and strategize with the president on the most pressing global and national matters. She balances this incredibly high-stakes job and trusted relationship with her complicated personal life." Former CIA officers Henry Curmpton (author of The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service) and Rodney Faraon (who has briefed several presidents himself) lend their expertise as executive producers along with Heigl (Killers) and her mother, Nancy Heigl, and Hollywood vets Alexi Hawley (Castle, The Following) and Robert Simonds (This Means War, The Pink Panther 2). “I have been passionate about, and enthralled by, this project from the moment Hank, Rodney and Bob brought it to me over a year ago,” Heigl said. “The story is not only compelling and intelligent but a look behind the curtain at the CIA we haven’t seen before in film or television.”

Tradecraft: Ellen Page in Talks to Star in Queen & Country Movie!

UNCLE who? While spy fans have been focused on other (admittedly exciting) topics for the past week, Fox has apparently been slowly moving forward once again on a spy project so exciting that it eclipses nearly all others in my own mind: the long-gestating Queen & Country movie, based on Greg Rucka's excellent, excellent series of comic books and novels! We haven't heard any movement on Queen & Country since 2009, when Peter Chernin came on board as a producer. That's a long time to remain dormant, and I'd feared the worst. But today, The Hollywood Reporter reports new movement... major movement! According to the trade, Ellen Page (Inception, Juno) is in negotiations to star as British secret agent Tara Chace. Peter Chernin (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) is still producing, along with Jenno Topping (I Spy, Charlie's Angels). The script of note is by Ryan Condal (Hercules: The Thracian Wars), who joined the project back in 2009 following previous drafts by Rucka, John Moore and Leverage creator Jon Rogers. I'd say it's a good sign that his script is deemed solid enough to last this long in the development process. According to the trade's log line, the film version of Queen & Country "tells of a British SOS [sic] operative named Tara Chace whose identity is compromised after she carries out an assassination." (Tara is actually a "minder" for the SIS, better known as MI6. Minders are roughly the equivalent in Rucka's world of le Carré's scalphunters, Fleming's Double O's, or, most directly, The Sandbaggers' sandbaggers. They're the special section.) This is basically the same log line that we've been hearing for years on this project, and still leads me to believe that the script is culled primarily from the first two arcs of Rucka's comic book, both of which are collected in Queen & Country: The Definitive Edition, Vol. 1 (an absolutely essential read for serious-minded spy fans!).

I unabashedly love Queen & Country. In my third ever post on this blog, way back in 2006, I called it "the best current, ongoing spy saga in any medium." Seven years later, I totally stand by that... except for that fact that with no new entry since 2011's novel The Last Run, I'm not completely sure it can still be called "ongoing." But even in the age of wonderful spy television like Homeland and The Americans and a renaissance for the James Bond moives, I still stand by Q&C as the best in any medium! It's simply great stuff, combining the Desk and Field sides of the serious side of the spy genre as well as past masters like Len Deighton's Samson series or Queen & Country's primary acknolwedged inspiration, Ian Mackintosh's Seventies TV classic The Sandbaggers. The entire run (to date) of the fantastic Oni Press comic book is collected in four oversized "definitive editions." These, along with the novels A Gentleman's Game, Private Wars and The Last Run comprise the entirety of the Tara Chace saga, again to date. In 2007 I came up with my own dream cast for a Queen & Country movie here. Ellen Page was not on my radar at the time, but I think she's an excellent actress and provided she can manage a convincing British accent (I'm guessing she can), she should prove a terrific choice! My other choices are probably a bit too old now to play opposite Page, but I stand by my selection of Hugh Laurie for the crucial role of section head Paul Crocker nonetheless! (Peter Capaldi would also be excellent, if a bit on the nose, but of course he's not tied up for the forseeable future with Doctor Who.) It will be interesting to see who ends up filling those roles, but I hope that Laurie (who made Fox a fortune during his years on House) is on their shortlist.

I really hope that Page signs on, and that her casting paves the way for this movie actually getting made! (And then I hope that inspires Rucka to revive the comic book, as he's been promising to do for many years now.) This is definitely one to keep an eye on. A series of Queen & Country movies could be the best thing to happen in the spy genre since Tinker Tailor!

Tradecraft: CBS Lands Another Potential Spy Series

As usual in the fall, the spy pilots are flying left and right at the networks. It's important to remember that few of these pilot scripts will actually end up being filmed, and even fewer will go to series come next season. But it's still exciting that there are so many spies in the potential mix! The latest to land at CBS is a drama from Bates Motel producer Kerry Ehrin and Revenge writer Nikki Toscano. Deadline reports that "the CBS drama centers on a retired CIA operative who, when a terrorist event rocks Washington, D.C., is pulled back into action, forced to investigate closer to home where the next generation of terrorists are being bred." It's written and executive produced by Toscano, with Ehrin on board as a consultant. The networks' interest in this type of series no doubt has something to do with the success of cable series Homeland (on Showtime) and The Americans (on FX).

Another Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Trailer

Another week, another new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV spot... Boy, between these videos and all those bus stop posters that are blanketing cities right now (well, I can speak for L.A. at least; I assume other cities, too), ABC is sure promoting this upcoming comic book-based spy series! This one doesn't add too much new footage, but there is a cool shot of someone dangling from a helicopter that perhaps hints at some of the wild action the old S.H.I.E.L.D. comics by Jim Steranko and Jack Kirby were known for, and one character refers to the Corvette we've seen in previous spots as "one of Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. collectibles." Being a fan of those comics, I really hope that means its wheels fold out to become "Mach-pressure fans" turning it into a flying spy car! If so, it's too bad it's not a Porsche 905 or Jaguar XKE as Nick Fury was known to drive in those wonderful Sixties issues, but I do like the idea of working elements of those classic comics in as "S.H.I.E.L.D. collectibles." (In Marvel's The Avengers, it was established that Agent Coulson avidly collects memorabilia related to superhero history, so it would be fairly logical to extend that collection to S.H.I.E.L.D. items of historical significance as well.) As I noted when they released the last trailer, I'm fully aware that this show won't be a direct translation of the 1960s Steranko comics I love so much, but I do hope that it finds clever ways like that to embody their spirit! Those comics themselves, products of that decade's spy craze, owed a lot to James Bond and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but Jim Steranko mixed in spandex and superheroics and surrealism and psychedelia to create a really unique, anything-goes take on spy-fi. As previously announced, Steranko's entire run on the series (which started out in the anthology comic Strange Tales before graduating to its own title) will be reprinted in a single volume this fall to tie in with the ABC show. For more background on the comic and the history of the fictional spy organization, read my full S.H.I.E.L.D. primer here.

Tradecraft: Cinemax to Air Original UK Strike Back, Previously Unseen in U.S.

Deadline reports that Cinemax will finally provide American audiences with the opportunity to see the original UK season of the action spy series Strike Back, which aired there on the cable channel B Sky B. Sky's Strike Back (known in Britain as Chris Ryan's Strike Back) starred Richard Armitage (MI-5) and Andrew Lincoln as agents of MI6's elite, ultra-secret paramilitary unit Section 20. Cinemax liked the series and wanted to acquire it, co-producing subsequent seasons and broadcasting them in America. Unfortunately, by that time Armitage had been cast in The Hobbit and Lincoln had moved onto The Walking Dead, so the Cinemax version was recast and rebooted, focusing on two entirely new characters (Philip Winchester and Sullivan Stapleton as Stonebridge and Scott) also recruited to work for Section 20. (Why there was no carryover in the office support staff I don't know.) While the first Stonebridge and Scott season aired as Season 2 of the series in Britain, Americans were introduced to it as a brand new series. On DVD, it was labelled "The First Cinemax Season" and American viewers never had the chance to see the real first season... until now! Starting October 25 in the regular Strike Back timeslot (following the conclusion of the third Cinemax season), the cabler will air the original UK series as Strike Back: Origins, billed as a "prequel." This is great news, because that first season with Armitage is really wonderful television. Seeing it first, in fact, I found it far superior to the Cinemax version (though a direct comparison is somewhat unfair, as the two versions are tonally pretty different). Now American audiences at large can finally be exposed to these six exciting episodes of espionage action. (And finally share the frustration UK viewers felt at Armitage's brief cameo in the first episode of the Cinemax series!) Hopefully this will also lead to a DVD and Blu-ray release for Strike Back: Origins down the road. It would be great if it also led to the current version of the show revisiting some of the characters from that first incarnation and tying up a few loose ends! (Hey, despite what we think we saw, anything can happen... right?)

Read my review of the UK Strike Back here.
Read my review of the US Strike Back here.

And here's Cinemax's trailer for the rebranded Strike Back: Origins:

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Feature Film Officially Set to Begin Filming Next Week With Hugh Grant as Mr. Waverly

We've followed the various twists and turns in the road to make a feature film version of the Sixties TV classic The Man From U.N.C.L.E. for at least three years (when first David Dobkin and then Steven Soderbergh were set to direct, the latter with George Clooney starring), but it's been an even longer road than that. (As far back as the mid Nineties, there were rumors of a Quentin Tarantino version, and later Matthew Vaughn.) Things finally seemed to solidify somewhat in December 2011 when Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) came on board to direct, but even then it wasn't a smooth ride. We've followed the drama in the trades as various stars were approached and in some cases even attached (most famously Tom Cruise) before drifting away. Even as the final cast shaped up over this past summer, there was still no official announcement from Warner Bros. Today that changed. Today, the studio finally issued a press release officially confirming that filming commences September 9 on a Man From U.N.C.L.E. feature film starring Henry Cavill (Man of Steel) as Napoleon Solo, Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger) as Illya Kuryakin and Hugh Grant as U.N.C.L.E. boss Alexander Waverly.

We've known for a while about Cavill and Hammer and Grant was announced a few weeks ago, but this is the first confirmation I've seen that Grant will be playing Waverly... and that's the first bit of casting on this project that really excites me! I'm certainly not up in arms or anything about Cavill or Hammer, but neither choice struck me as especially exciting either. This one does. I wouldn't have pictured Grant filling the shoes of the great Leo G. Carroll, but now that it's done I can totally see it. (Especially following Grant's heavily made-up appearance in the Seventies portion of Cloud Atlas.) Best of all, though, the press release also officially confirms that the film will be set in the 1960s. This was the case when Soderbergh was attached (working from a script by The Bourne Ultimatum's Scott Z Burns), but I was afraid no other director would have the chutzpah to set a modern action movie in the Sixties. Still, it looked in recent months like Ritchie was doing just that, and Hammer made allusions to the film being a period piece in interviews, but it's wonderful to have that officially confirmed. The Cold War setting is the aspect that has me most excited about this project. We've seen a comedic recreation of the most fertile period in spy film history in the excellent OSS 117 movies, but I, for one, can't wait to see a straightforward action spy movie set in that era but shot with modern techniques. (Assuming, that is, that this U.N.C.L.E. film is a serious movie and not a comedic take, like Starsky and Hutch.)

Ritchie is not using the Burns script, but rather one that he penned with his producing partner Lionel Wigram. Wigram and Ritchie produce along with John Davis and Steve Clark-Hall; one-time directorial candidate David Dobkin remains attached as executive producer.

Here is the plot description provided in the press release:

Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. centers on CIA agent Solo and KGB agent Kuryakin. Forced to put aside longstanding hostilities, the two team up on a joint mission to stop a mysterious international criminal organization, which is bent on destabilizing the fragile balance of power through the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. The duo’s only lead is the daughter of a vanished German scientist, who is the key to infiltrating the criminal organization, and they must race against time to find him and prevent a worldwide catastrophe.

There are some details in there likely to alarm U.N.C.L.E. TV purists, but I'm thoroughly encouraged, personally. It makes complete sense for the American and Russian agents to come to U.N.C.L.E. from their respective countries' secret services. And as Wigram points out, this is a new take. "Guy and I have long loved these characters," he says, "and wanted to start from scratch with our own take and create a film steeped in the 1960s for today’s audiences." That sounds just fine to me. Beyond the origins, the plot sounds very much like it could come from an actual episode of the show, or from any number of spy movies produced during that decade. And that's as it should be. It sounds like it will involve the traditional U.N.C.L.E. rival THRUSH (the international criminal organization), and it sounds like it will involve an "innocent" (the TV show had a gimmick of teaming Solo and Kuryakin with a civilian - usually a beautiful woman - week after week) in the scientist's daughter.

Also confirmed in the cast are Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina), Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) and Jared Harris (Moriarty in Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes sequel). I really liked Debicki in Gatsby, and I've been a fan of Harris ever since his wonderful performance in the criminally underrated 1994 vampire film Nadja (a remake of Dracula's Daugher). Plus, he's now a Hammer star! Presumably Harris will be playing either the missing scientist or the villain... or possibly both, should those characters prove to be one and the same.

Movie Review: Goldsnake aka Suicide Mission to Singapore (1966)

There were certain code words in Sixties movie titles that instantly denoted spy, and the makers of Eurospy movies took full advantage of all of them. “Agent,” of course, along with any number of variations on the numbers “0” and “7.” “Operation.” “Assignment.” Even “Man” (usually when preceded by “Our” or “That”). But at the height of Bondmania, in the wake of Goldfinger, one of the surest ways to look for a spy movie when scanning the marquees on 42nd street was to watch for the word “Gold.” And if it was used in compound word unlikely to be found in any dictionary, then you knew you’d struck, er... gold. Goldginger, Goldwather (whatever that is), Goldseven, Goldvan, Goldman, Golden Men, Golden Boy… the variations were endless, and rarely had anything to do with the film’s plot. Even when they did, that meaning tended to be arbitrary. (Why else, for instance, would Inspector Ginko name his climactic operation "Operation Goldvan" in Danger: Diabolik if it wasn’t being considered as an alternate title for the film?) Imagine my surprise, then, when an actual golden snake turns up in the final minutes of Goldsnake, thus justifying the predictably (and gloriously) Bassey-esque title ballad! (You can hear that for yourself on YouTube.) Yes, there's actually a golden snake in the movie Goldnake! (Eventually.) In some Eurospy movies you have to appreciate the little things, and I appreciated that. And Goldsnake is a movie where you have to appreciate the little things, because big ones don’t tend to happen.

Stelio Candelli (Planet of the Vampires), credited here as “Stanley Kent,” gets his only shot at Eurospy stardom (though he played a supporting role in Secret Agent 777) as agent Kurt Jackson. It becomes clear fairly quickly why he didn’t get another opportunity. He’s fairly cardboard in the role (and honestly a bit weird-looking for a leading man), and totally devoid of the charm necessary to pull off a Eurospy lead. Jackson is a Western Intelligence agent of indeterminate nationality (he seems to report to French masters, but also refers to taking orders from the Pentagon) who pops up in Singapore with an assignment to track down a missing atom scientist and his son. No, that wasn’t a typo. In this singular instance, the missing atom scientist has a young son and not a comely daughter, as missing scientists nearly always have. While daughters tend to be integral to the plot, however, the son is barely mentioned (and indeed eventually disappears altogether from the narrative).

The scientist, Dr. Chang, has invented a nuclear bomb the size and shape and texture of a golf ball. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would suspect that the producers were pinching pennies by just using a golf ball, but we’re assured that it’s a nuke on the inside. Naturally, this is of great interest to competing world powers, all of whom are searching for the scientist. Kent doesn’t get his usual briefing in the customary curtained room in Washington or Paris (a popular cost-cutting measure in Eurospy films was to save the expense of a wall by using a curtain to close off at least one side of a boss’s office), but instead turns up already in action at the airport in Singapore, ready for his Dr. No scene. (Even after Goldfinger had reset the characteristics of a Bondian spy movie, Eurospy imitators still diligently went through that whole Dr. No routine of the spy arriving at an airport and finding that either someone wants to take his picture or someone has sent a car for him that he hasn’t requested. In this case, it’s the latter.) Perhaps this is because director Ferdinando Baldi is challenging narrative conventions and chose to boldly begin in media res… or perhaps it’s because Goldsnake is so low budget it can’t even afford the customary stock footage aerial of Washington and the inevitable curtain-walled office. I’m inclined to believe the latter, though I will say that Baldi makes the most of his shoestring budget by filming entirely on location, which makes the proceedings appear more exotic, and hence more expensive.

Also adding production value is a gorgeous white E-Type Jaguar—always a plus in a Sixties spy film. It’s got some gadgets, but they’re the type that don’t require any special effects. (He pushes a knob on the dash twice and he’s able to talk on the radio… or at least talk at the dashboard.) Locations (the best mansions and docks Singapore has to offer), cars (there’s actually another E-type—a yellow one—later on!), creative gadgets (exploding matches, guaranteed to come in handy when a villain doesn’t have a light to offer you for your last cigarette!) and a strong supporting cast (Juan Cortez is effective in the Kerim Bey role, Jean, and Yoko Tani and Annabella Incontrera lend the requisite beauty and glamor while both proving themselves appropriately ruthless at times as well) all help gloss over the shoestring budget, but unfortunately it shows glaringly when the time comes for action. The most frustrating thing about Goldsnake is that every time things start to get really exciting… it cuts away to another location or another day. If Kurt gets surrounded by thugs with machine guns, he’ll manage to pick off one or two, and then instead of witnessing how he gets out of that situation, we’re treated to a scene of him discussing it later with Jean. Or if he escapes from the villain’s house on foot as armed henchmen prepare to give chase, instead of showing us the ensuing foot chase, we see Kurt waking up the next morning in bed next to his gorgeous assistant Annie Wong (Tani).

Worst of all, any forms of exotic travel are glossed over. At one point Kurt gets Jean to order him a fighter jet so he can get to an island. We’re treated to an actual shot of an actual airport with our actors actually next to the jet, thus proving it’s not stock footage. Kurt climbs into the cockpit in his suit and tie (spies don’t need flight suits!), straps in, and… and we cut to him disembarking from a ferry boat onto the island. What happened, movie?!? Any scenario I can imagine is far too exciting not to be shown. I’m guessing he probably got chased by a bunch of enemy jets, had an awesome dogfight, but ultimately succumbed to superior numbers. So he ejected over the ocean, shot down the final two enemy fighters with his pistol as he parachuted down, then managed to guide himself to land atop that ferry boat. Right? That must be it. But the actual movie, sadly, just cuts from Kurt seating himself in the cockpit to getting off the boat. (And I’m guessing they probably showed us every last centimeter of film stock showing that plane.)

Sex scenes are similarly glossed over, which is par for the course for that era, but so are the seductions. Usually we’re at least treated to the few cheesy lines the agent uses to lure the lovely lady to bed with him. Not here. In one case, Kurt and Annie find themselves fending off gunmen near a beach. Both fall in the water leaving their clothes soaking wet—an untenable predicament which can only be rectified (in Eurospyland, anyway) by sleeping together right away. Not only do we not see how they escape the remaining gunmen; poor Stelio doesn’t even get to suggest, “let’s get out of these wet clothes!” with an arched eyebrow. What we do get is kind of interesting, though. Jean comes to find Kurt, sees the undressed Annie, and connects the dots. This leads to a smug conversation between the two men discussing the role of women in espionage (and, by extension, sadly, in espionage films... or at least Eurospy films). “Just imagine how terrible it would be, spying without women?” Jean asks. “Where else could a spy who fell in the water try to warm up?” Kurt pats his buddy on the shoulder and agrees, “What women mean to our job I don't have to explain to you, do I?” And they share a knowing chuckle. I'm sure all the women who have made sacrifices for their countries in the clandestine services over the years appreciate their consideration.

Overall, Goldsnake ranks pretty low in the Eurospy canon for the things it omits. But that’s no reason to scoff at what it manages to contain. For the most part Goldsnake checks all the boxes expected of low-budget Sixties spy entertainment. We’ve got the cars, the girls, the gadgets, the suave(ish) hero in a dinner jacket. In fact, Kurt Jackson deserves special recognition for the sheer amount of time he spends in his dinner jacket. He dons it for most of the first half of the movie! And that counts for something. In fact, the movie does a good enough job at conveying the spirit of its genre that its poster (admittedly better than the film, as is often the case) became the cover of Matt Blake and David Deal’s genre bible The Eurospy Guide! (The colors were altered on both the Jag and the dinner jacket, presumably because red and black make for more dynamic advertising than a lot of whites.) This is definitely not “first Eurospy movie” material (or even second, eighth or tenth), but seasoned connoisseurs will still find plenty to enjoy here. Goldsnake hasn't got much, but it makes the most of what it does have.