Tradecraft: Meet the New Transporter

Deadline reports that Chris Vance, who played the smarmy "psycho" arms dealer Mason Gilroy on Season 3 of Burn Notice, has been tapped to fill Jason Statham's sizable shoes on EuropaCorp's Transporter TV series.  Hm.  I'm not convinced.  Vance didn't really impress me on Burn Notice, and physically he's certainly no Statham... but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.  (At least he's English.)  I think he was also considered for the new Saint telefilm, so presumably he's got reserves of charm that weren't on display in Burn Notice.  As previously reported, the 12-episode, $48 million Transporter TV series (based on the awesome Luc Besson-produced series of neo-Eurospy movies) will air here on Cinemax. It will shoot in Europe.

Person of Interest Trailer

CBS has released a short preview (via io9) of their freshly picked up J.J. Abrams/Jonah Nolan show Person of Interest, which stars Michael Emerson (who was so great as Benjamin Linus on Lost) and Jim Caviezel (who was so bland as Six on the disappointing remake of The Prisoner).  Caviezel stars as a presumed-dead CIA agent recruited by a reclusive billionaire (Emerson) to use his spy skills to wage a vigilante war on crime in New York... before it happens. Up until that last Minority Report twist, it basically sounds like The Equalizer (ex-spy uses skills to fight crime in NYC) meets Batman (self-financed billionaire wages war on crime). The Batman connection is no coincidence, either. Person of Interest comes from the team of J.J. Abrams (Alias, Mission: Impossible III, Undercovers) and Jonah Nolan, brother of Christopher and co-writer of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.  The pre-crime aspect seems from the clip to be an expansion of a concept Nolan first explored in The Dark Knight: the use of a network of security cameras to invade citizens' privacy for their protection.  It's a theme also explored on contemporary UK spy series like MI-5 (aka Spooks), as CCTV cameras are a way of life in Britain.  It's hard to get a sense of a show from these partly behind-the-scenes upfront clips, but the premise and the people involed have me intrigued. My primary misgiving, though, is Caviezel.  In The Prisoner, he just proved too dull to be a leading man.  Hopefully he approaches this character differently.  Personally, I would have rather seen Emerson paired again with his Lost co-star Terry O'Quinn as ex-spies in Odd Jobs, but sadly NBC didn't feel the same way; the new regime pulled the plug on that potential Abrams show.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week and Last: Elke, Avengers, Bad Hair and Deceptive Bionic Affairs

Wow, this is one of those weeks with just a ton of new spy DVDs! That's why it's taken me an extra day to compile this post. As always, please consider supporting this site by buying these titles from the Amazon links here if they catch your fancy.

Covert Affairs
On a huge day for spy releases, USA's summer hit Covert Affairs (which made my own list of the best new spy TV shows of 2010) is probably the biggest domestic release. Covert Affairs (review here) stars Piper Perabo as freshman CIA officer Annie Walker. While there are a few of the soap opera elements that have haunted the genre since Alias, Covert Affairs is mainly a spy show as workplace dramady. I've always been a fan of the "desk" side of the spy drama, and I think Covert Affairs handles the office politics better than any other US spy series I can think of. (Certainly better than the melodramatic histrionics of CTU!) Of course, this is still a USA show, which means it's got its share of in-the-field excitement as well. It's a solid, fairly believable, character-driven espionage series that should appeal to all fans of the genre. If you missed it on TV, give it a try on DVD. Extras include commentaries on three episodes featuring stars Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham, executive producers Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) and David Bartis and show creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord, deleted scenes, a gag reel, an exclusive tour of the Covert Affairs set, featurettes ("Welcome to The Farm," "Blind Insight") and a descriptive narration of the visual elements of the series for visually impaired viewers. Covert Affairs: Season One, a 3-disc set, retails for $59.98, but can currently be ordered from Amazon for nearly half that. 

Circles of Deceit

From Acorn comes another obscure British spy series—this one from the Nineties. Circles of Deceit stars ITV mainstay Dennis Waterman (The Sweeny, Minder) and consists of four TV movies made in 1995 and '96: Circle of Deceit, Dark Secret, Kalon and Sleeping Dogs. Waterman plays a former special-forces operative who remains on call for MI5. His assignments find him taking on Irish terrorists, tracking down professional assassins, and pitting his wits against ruthless drug dealers. But, true to the genre, some of his deadliest adversaries are his devious bosses who keep him on a need-to-know basis, forcing him to rely on his instincts and his training in a world of betrayal, danger, and deceit. Guest stars include Derek Jacobi, John Hannah, Peter Vaughan and Leo McKern (The Prisoner). Retail for the 2-disc set is $49.99, but naturally Amazon's got it for substantially less.

The Prize
Four years ago it was rumored to be part of a Warner Paul Newman Collection on DVD, but that never materialized.  Two years ago, Warner reps said it was still in the works.  But it still didn't appear. Now, The Prize is finally available... but on MOD instead of DVD, from The Warner Archive. It's still fully remastered though. Writer Ernest Lehman shamelessly rips off his own script for North By Northwest in this lightweight Stockholm-set thriller starring Paul Newman, Elke Sommer and Edward G. Robinson. Instead of a biplane, Paul Newman outruns a... truck. (Um, yeah. Not quite as exciting.) Instead of rudely interrupting an auction to evade the baddies by getting himself arrested, he rudely interrupts a nudist meeting for the same reason. It’s not a great movie like Hitchcock's, but it's a damn good imitation and it's seriously entertaining. And, best of all, it’s got Elke... and that’s all that really matters.  A day with another Elke Sommer spy movie on DVD is a good day.

The Bionic Woman: Season Two
Universal follows up last fall's release of Season 1 of the cult classic 70s show with The Bionic Woman: Season 2. Lindsay Wagner stars as Jamie Sommers, bionic agent of the super-secret OSI (Office of Scientific Investigations) who undertakes increasingly dangerous covert missions at the behest of her boss, Oscar Goldman. Unlike the truncated first season, the second season includes a full 24 episodes. Better still, it also includes two crossover episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man so you've got the complete package! Retail is $39.98; Amazon's got it now for $26.99.

The Complete Avengers
Last week saw the UK release of Optimum's The Complete Avengers: 50th Anniversary Edition. This is the big one. This set assembles all five sets (Seasons 2-6 as well as the few surviving first season episodes) of special features-laden, remastered Avengers DVDs that Optimum put out over the past two years. The picture on these discs looks better than you've ever seen it before, but the individual releases were plagued with technical issues. Fortunately, this complete set contains fixed versions of all the discs, minus all the flaws. So if you've been holding out, well, then you're in luck. Buy now. If you've been buying all the individual releases, well, the bad news isn't over yet. You see, the best feature of this massive, 39-disc set is an exclusive bonus DVD containing the Holy Grail(s) of Avengers curiosities (well, my own Holy Grails, at least, ever since I learned of their existence 13 years ago): the 8mm short films Diana Rigg made following her color series, Das Diadem (The Golden Schlusse) and Mini Killers. For reasons known only to her, Rigg agreed to star as a very Emma Peel-like character in these silent fan films made by wealthy German and Spanish amateur auteurs. By all accounts, they're weird and not worth thirteen years of pursuit. But I still need to see them, and they're still wonderful extra bonus features. And they're still available only with this set, along with a featurette on the show's locations, some archival trailers and a few more first season episode reconstructions. And besides that new stuff, of course you also get all the amazing value-added content from the individual releases.  The only thing you don't get is The New Avengers. I'm not sure why Optimum didn't just go all the way and include that too, but it's available on its own (and at quite a bargain price right now on Amazon.co.uk). The Complete Avengers: 50th Anniversary Edition, a must-own spy title if ever there was one, sells for a prohibitive £143.99 on Amazon.co.uk.

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of James Bond and Mrs. Peel
Finally, though it's not a spy series, another new DVD from last week worth noting is the BFS release of The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders starring Doctor Who's Alex Kingston and, more relevantly, co-starring Daniel Craig and Diana Rigg. But the combination of James Bond and Emma Peel together isn't even why I'm mentioning this. I'm mentioning it because of Craig's hair, which definitely counts in the "misfortunes" category of the title.  In fact, all three of those words in that tagline on the cover refer to the hair: "Notorious. Scandalous. Unforgettable!" As a document of the current 007's worst hair ever, this DVD earns a mention here.

First Glimpse of Page 8 in BBC Promo

Amidst clips of the (awesome) new season of Doctor Who, upcoming episodes of Luther and lots of other BBC programs, this BBC Original Drama trailer offers spy fans a tantalizing first glimpse at David Hare's upcoming spy movie Page 8, starring Ralf Fiennes, Bill Nighey, Michael Gambon and Rachel Weisz.  As we first heard late last year, Page 8 follows Nighy as an MI5 ­operative who believes Weisz's character represents a threat to him. Gambon plays the Security Service's Director General. With a cast like that, I'm really looking forward to this.

Colombiana Hits Theaters in August

When the trailer for Colombiana was released earlier this month, the latest neo-Eurospy assassin movie from the creators of Taken raced to the top of my must-see list.  Really, it's a great trailer, and it got a great audience reaction when I saw it in a theater in front of Thor.  For some reason I thought it was coming out either this fall or early next year (both traditional EuropaCorp release dates), but apparently we can look forward to seeing Zoe Saldana in action sooner than that! Deadline reports that Sony Pictures has set an August 26 release date in the United States.  I can't wait!

Tradecraft: Nikita Renewed!

Deadline reports that the CW has renewed its freshman series Nikita for another season, ending weeks of breathless speculation. At least the fifth incarnation of Luc Besson's seminal 1990 female assassin movie La Femme Nikita (following an American remake, a Hong Kong remake with a sequel and a long-running US/Canadian TV series), the latest version stars Maggie Q as the titular heroine and Lyndsy Fonseca as her agent inside the sinister, SMERSH-like Division. After an unforgettable advertising campaign last summer and a weak start last fall, this Nikita improved dramatically to become one of the best new spy series of the season. Its ratings, however, remained questionable, so a second season was by no means guaranteed.  But now it's got one, and I look forward to seeing where it goes! According to the trade blog, it will likely migrate from Thursdays to Fridays to be pared with the network's long-running hit Supernatural. Normally a Friday timeslot is the kiss of death, but I'm not sure that's necessarily the case on The CW. Personally, I'm fine with that, because Thursdays are pretty tough on my DVR.

Len Deighton Interview @ The Deighton Dossier

Fello COBRAS blog The Deighton Dossier (the best resource out there for information on Len Deighton's spy novels) has scored a really cool interview with the man himself!  Parts One, Two and Three are all up now at the Dossier, comprising the entire Q&A.  In the first part, the author discusses his writing habits, what he's working on now, and the Harry Palmer movies (including the never-filmed Horse Under Water). Check it out!

Plame's Spy Novel Coming From Penguin in 2012

We heard last year that notoriously outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was working on a spy novel with mystery writer Sarah Lovett.  Today Deadline reveals that the publisher will be new Penguin imprint Blue Rider Press, and that the book will be out in 2012.  Plame previously penned a non-fiction memoir. She was also the subject of a Decemberists song, of Bourne Identity director Doug Liman's excellent 2010 spy movie Fair Game (review here), and served as a techinical advisor on the first season Liman's CIA-set TV series Covert Affairs (review here).  Covert Affairs: Season One is out today on DVD from Universal.

Tradecraft: US Distribution Locked For Jason Statham/Clive Owen Spy Movie Killer Elite

Deadline reports that AMC Theaters' new distribution arm Open Road has acquired the action spy movie Killer Elite for US distribution this fall. In Killer Elite, we'll get to see Jason Statham go up against Clive Owen. As if that weren't already a killer spy cast, the film also stars Robert DeNiro and Chuck's Yvonne Strahovski. Statham will play Danny Bryce, "one of the world's most skilled special ops agents," who's lured out of retirement when his old comrades start being murdered. He assembles what's left of his old team to rescue his mentor (DeNiro), but to do so he'll need to infiltrate a secretive group of ex-SAS operatives led by Clive Owen. According to the press release, "Danny and his team must take down a rogue cell of solider assassins before their actions result in a global political meltdown. [The] whirlwind action crosses the globe from Australia to Paris, Wales, London, Dubai and Oman." Despite the somewhat similar subject matter, this is not a remake of the 1975 Sam Peckinpah movie of the same name starring James Caan and Robert Duval; the Statham Killer Elite is instead based on a "non-fiction novel" called The Feather Men by Ranulph Fiennes.  With that cast, it's just become one of my own most anticipated movies of the fall!

Sideshow Announces Nick Fury Figure (UPDATED)

Premium toymaker Sideshow Collectibles has released the first image of a new "comiquette" of Marvel superspy Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.  I'm not quite sure what a "comiquette" is, but I'd imagine it's a grandiose way of saying statuette.  (Sideshow makes a lot of replicas of maquettes from movies, but obviously these comic-based ones are original creations.)  I'm not sure what the scale of this thing is, but I'd imagine it's too big for most spy fans to be able to display.  Still, it's awfully cool, so I wish I had room for it!  This awesome likeness of Fury is clearly based on Jim Steranko's iconic cover to Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4, also seen as the cover to this collection. Sideshow's Nick Fury comiquette will be fully revealed on their production blog (UPDATE: now live!) on Tuesday, May 17, and be available for preorder through their newsletter on May 19. These editions usually sell out, so if you're interested you may want to consider preordering. That same day, a comiquette of one of Nick Fury's deadliest (and sexiest) enemies, Madame Hydra, will also be available—also based on a classic Steranko design. The Madame Hydra figurine (UPDATE: more pictures here) is particularly notable because, to the best of my knowledge, this release marks the first toy of this character in any scale.  Sadly there was never a Madame Hydra Marvel Legends action figure, and I don't think there's yet been one in the Marvel Universe line.  Retail for both figures is a whopping $279.99.

Blogger Issues

Blogger's been having some issues which have resulted in my posts from yesterday disappearing.  However, one that was gone has already reappeared, so I'm hopeful that they all might.  Honestly, I can't even remember what things I posted yesterday (wait... there was one about that USA show, Hard Cover, I think...), but I think there were about three.  If you remember (or even better if you've still got a browser open with them in it by some miraculous chance), please drop me a line or leave a comment.  Thanks!  There may also be some issues with the labels on posts, but hopefully that, too, will be resolved soon.

New Cars 2 Trailer

I still haven't seen Pixar's first Cars movie (even though I vowed to last time I reported on this sequel), but the new one looks pretty darn good.  Judging from this new trailer, it's the classic story of an innocent abroad mistaken for a spy that we've seen in everything from The Man Who Knew Too Much to Gotcha! to If Looks Could Kill... but with cars.  That part still strikes me as kind of odd (they just don't seem to have the relatability of Pixar's toys and monsters and creatures and people), but some of those cars are spy cars loaded with gadgets and, in one case, voiced by Michael Caine!  And that's awesome.  Burn Notice's Bruce Campbell also lends his voice, which is also awesome.  I wish this had come out when I was a kid; I would have gone nuts for it.

Tradecraft: Only One Spy Show On USA's New Development Slate

Deadline has a report from USA's upfront presentation in New York last week revealing the cable network's current development slate, and, somewhat surprisingly, only one of the shows on the docket is about spies.  While one out of thirteen ain't bad by normal standards, USA is a network and a brand largely based on the success of spy series, like Burn Notice (which set the template for their current slate of successes), Covert Affairs and (going way back) La Femme Nikita. Here's the official synopsis of the one for spy fans to keep their eyes on—one of several recent shows or pilots that seems to owe a bit to Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

HARD COVER (One hour drama)

The best undercover operative can blend in anywhere and be completely unassuming. Then who better to go on assignment than a middle-aged Mom working with a rogue FBI agent? Writer/Executive Producers are Peter Paige and Brad Bredeweg. Executive Producer is Laurie Zaks (Castle). From Universal Cable Productions.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: More Details On MI-5: Volume 9

Season 10 to be the series' last?

We already knew that the next volume of MI-5 DVDs (known as Spooks in the UK) would hit American shelves this July as opposed to next January.  (All the other seasons had been released in January, keeping American audiences over a year behind on the show's storylines.)  Now, thanks to TV Shows On DVD, we have the artwork as well.  And, thanks to the official copy, we also have a strong indication that Season 10 will be the final season.  (If true, I'll be sorry to see it go.  MI-5 has had its ups and downs, but I always look forward to the next season, and overall the show has done a good job handling a constantly changing core cast.)  BBC will release MI-5: Volume 9, a 3-disc set, on July 12.  The SRP is $39.98 (though it can already be preordered for cheaper than that on Amazon).  No extras were announced in the press release, which the editors of TV Shows On DVD take to mean there won't be any.  That would be unfortunate, as the show's early seasons were packed with bonus features, and recent ones had featured at least a few. Here's the BBC description:

The penultimate season of the hugely successful, long-running drama introduces a host of new characters. Relations between the CIA and MI5 reach breaking point over mysterious hackers. And a horrific truth about Lucas' past is uncovered by Harry when they come face to face in a compelling interrogation. Friendships are tested to the limit, Harry and Ruth's bond intensifies and the depth of deceit leads to the ultimate game of cat and mouse.

Read my review of MI-5: Volume 1
Read my review of MI-5: Volume 2

Read my review of MI-5: Volume 3

Read my review of MI-5: Volume 4
Read my review of MI-5: Volume 5

Poster For The Debt

Focus Features has released a new 1-sheet for The Debt, which opens August 19.  I'm really excited for this one.  It's got a great cast in what looks to be a solid, serious, old-school spy movie, from great writers to boot.  And it (partially) takes place in the Sixties! The trailer looked great, and who wouldn't want to see a young version of Helen Mirren take down Casino Royale's Mr. White?  Here's the official synopsis:

The espionage thriller begins in 1997, as shocking news reaches retired Mossad secret agents Rachel (Academy Award winner Helen Mirren, RED) and Stephan (two-time Academy Award nominee Tom Wilkinson) about their former colleague David (Ciarán Hinds, Munich, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). All three have been venerated for decades by their country because of the mission that they undertook back in 1966, when the trio (portrayed, respectively, by Jessica Chastain [The Tree of Life], Marton Csokas [The Bourne Supremacy], and Sam Worthington [the guy who wasn't in The Tourist]) tracked down Nazi war criminal Vogel (Jesper Christensen of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) in East Berlin. At great risk, and at considerable personal cost, the team’s mission was accomplished – or was it? The suspense builds in and across two different time periods, with startling action and surprising revelations.

Tradecraft: NBC Renews Chuck; Fox Cancels Human Target, Retools Exit Strategy

With all the major networks' upfront presentations just around the corner, now's when we start to hear about which new pilots have been picked up to series and which current shows have been cancelled.  Fox got the ball rolling yesterday by announcing that Human Target has been cancelled, which is too bad.  It was a fun, light-weight action hour the likes of which you don't see much on TV these days.  It was somewhat surprising that Exit Strategy, a high-profile pilot from hitmakers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (whose spy cred includes Alias, Jack of All Trades, Mission: Impossible III and the current reimagining of Hawaii Five-O) starring Ethan Hawke, was not announced as a pickup... yet.  The Hollywood Reporter reports that that pilot may yet find life at the network after being "retooled." The only problem with that plan, according to the trade, is that pilot director Antoine Fuqua is scheduled to shoot a film this summer. Deadline gets more specific about the retooling, adding that "Fox brass felt the pilot had a lot of action and not too much character in it, so they had been looking to shift the focus on the show." Having loved the Mission: Impossible-like premise but read an early version of the pilot script that I found hugely disappointing, the retooling sounds like a good idea.  (To be fair, I hear that Kurtzman and Orci themselves did a pass on the script subsequent to the draft I read, so that may have addressed some of my issues.)  But I'm not sure if that shift in focus is going in the right direction.  In the initial script, the characterizations were by far the worst part.  Hopefully they're re-building them from the ground up, and not just building up what's already there and already bad.  Guess we'll see.  I'm still curious about this show, and still rooting for it to make it to the air just because I think there's a place for a Mission: Impossible type series on network television.

But the big news (and unexpected) is that, according to a Deadline report, NBC has once again renewed the perennially endangered Chuck! I'm glad to hear it, because I thought Chuck had a great season this year, thanks to a Timothy Dalton injection. Still, it suffered ever declining ratings, so the pick-up comes as a bit of a surprise.  Just like last year, the hour-long spy comedy has been given an initial order of just 13 episodes.  If other shows do poorly (as happened this season), more episodes could be ordered.  Unfortunately, that kind of makes it hard for the writers to plot a full season.  That's why so many of this year's plots (including the Dalton thread) were tied up so neatly in a mid-season episode that seemed like a finale.  Then the poor writers had to struggle to stretch them out further when more episodes were called for.

That just leaves the CW's Nikita as far as on-the-bubble spy series go.  After a less than promising start, it turned out to be one of the best new spy series of the season, so I hope it makes the cut. Pilot-wise, I'm also curious about the J.J. Abrams/Jonah Nolan Equalizer-meets-Matt Huston show Person of Interest (a millionaire sponsors a former spy to help the helpless in New York) on NBC and Meet Jane on Lifetime.  Deadline reported last month that Meet Jane was not picked up by the cable network in this round, but may still have life left in it after a retooling of its own.  I suspect we'll hear very soon about Person of Interest, since NBC has already started announcing pick-ups.  Fortunately, my favorite spy pilot script of the season, Missing, already has a 13-episode order from ABC and is currently shooting in Europe.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: More Info On The Fall of Sam Axe

Fox has officially announced the Burn Notice spin-off TV movie, The Fall of Sam Axe, for release on DVD and Blu-ray on July 26.  If you're experiencing déjà vu, that's because the studio let the cat out of the bag early in a press release last month about series creator Matt Nix signing a new overall deal.  Now they've issued another press release specifically about the Bruce Campbell prequel, which depicts Sam's final mission as a Navy SEAL prior to the events of the TV show.  According to TV Shows On DVD, Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe will be available both on DVD and Blu-ray.  (So far only the second season of the show has been issued in the high-def format.)  Both releases contain an extended cut of the telefilm running 108 minutes and including scenes not seen on the USA television broadcast.  Extras include an audio commentary (participants TBA, but you'd have to assume Bruce Campbell, as he is the King of the Audio Commentary, and hope for director Jeffrey Donovan as well), a featurette called "The Fall of Jeffrey Donovan" (presumably about series star Donovan's move behind the camera), deleted scenes and a gag reel.  July 26?  Hm, that's right after the San Diego Comic Con, where The Fall of Sam Axe was first announced last year.  And if there's anything besides DVD audio commentaries that Bruce Campbell is the king of, it's Comic Con.  (Hail to the King, baby.)  I'd say there's a good bet that this DVD will be heavily promoted at this year's con, and possibly even offered for sale early.  Fox Home Entertainment has a history of offering limited edition DVDs early at Comic Con, including Futurama and Dollhouse.  If I hear anything official along those lines, I'll keep you posted...

Tradecraft: Clive Owen Spies Again

Clive Owen has signed on for another spy role.  The actor will play an MI5 agent in Shadow Dancer, a co-production of Paramount and BBC Films, reports Deadline.  Man on Wire helmer James Marsh will direct this tale of "an IRA sympathizer who is arrested after an aborted bombing attempt in London and has to decide whether to turn against her cause or spend her life in prison." Owen will play the MI5 officer trying to turn her. Andrea Riseborough, Aidan Gillen and Gillian Anderson co-star; Tom Bradby has penned the script based on his own novel. Filming begins later this month in Dublin.

Tradecraft: TWC Picks Up Newest Movie From OSS 117 Team

The Artist is not a spy movie, but it's one I'm very eager to see!  This is the next movie from the director/star team of Michel Hazanavicius and Jean Dujardin, a duo who should be very familiar to spy fans from their two OSS 117 spoof movies.  I love those movies and, in my book, these guys can do no wrong!  Looks like The Weinstein Company feels the same way, because Deadline reports that they've snatched up this silent, black and white dramady in the first big acquisition deal of this year's Cannes Film Festival.  They must be pretty confident in it, too, because besides shelling out a seven-figure minimum guarantee, TWC plans to release The Artist during Oscar season this fall!  According to the trade blog, the film takes place in 1927 Hollywood and "focuses on a silent movie star whose career seems about to be ended because of the arrival of the talkies. At the same time, a pretty young extra sees the new format as an opportunity to launch her star."  Dujardin's OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies co-star (and Hazanavicius' wife) Bernice Bejo co-stars, along with John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle and Penelope Ann Miller.  I've been looking forward to this since I first heard about it last summer, and I'm so glad to know that it's got a US distributor lined up!  Dujardin is not only a master of comic timing, but also of exaggerated facial expressions, so I expect he'll shine in a silent movie.  Plus, it's a good way for the French-speaker to make a big splash with international audiences.

Read my film review of OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies here.
Read my DVD review of OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies here.
Read my film review of OSS 117: Lost in Rio here.

Read my DVD review of OSS 117: Lost in Rio here.

Tradecraft: Rachel Weisz Sought For Bourne Role

Uh-oh.  Will James Bond's girlfriend leave him for rival spy Jason Bourne?  Could be.  Deadline reports that Daniel Craig's real-life squeeze Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) is in talks to co-star with Jeremy Renner in Tony Gilroy's Bourne spin-off movie, The Bourne Legacy.  Sounds good to me!  Weisz is an excellent actress and a good match for Renner, and I've always wanted to see her in a spy movie.  (Though I would have preferred Bond.)  Unfortunately, she's also in talks to star in Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful, and the shooting schedules overlap, so she might not be able to do both movies.  She'd make a good wicked witch, too, so I hope she's able to make it all work out.

Rare Eurospy Movies Available Streaming On Netflix

A number of Eurospy and spy movies not available on DVD have turned up streaming on Netflix.  Netflix subscribers can watch these on their computers, their PS3s or other gaming systems, or on the Roku box (which I have and recommend).  Best of all, many of them are offered in terrific widescreen prints!  Here are some screen grabs from Danger Route, Matchless and Masquerade.  Other Eurospy titles to look out for streaming on Netflix include Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs,  File of the Golden Goose and Five Golden Dragons.  Additionally, there are tons of Hollywood spy movie from various eras there that aren't on DVD.  If you've got Netflix, it's worth poking around!  Hopefully the fact that there are nice prints of these titles available as streaming media can be taken as an indication that one day they'll turn up on MOD DVDs.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Unknown

Warner Bros. has announced the Liam Neeson amnesia thriller Unknown for release on DVD and Blu-ray/DVD combo on June 21. According to DVD Active, extras on the BD will include the featurettes "Unknown: What is Known?" and "Liam Neeson: Known Action Hero" as well as a digital copy of the film.  In the interest of unfairness, the DVD will only offer the first featurette.  I never got around to reviewing Unknown when it was in theaters, but I really enjoyed it.  It's not just Taken in Berlin, as the advertising campaign tried so hard to make us believe.  That shorthand actually did the movie a disservice, because Unknown is a bit more cerebral than Taken.  (A bit!) It's not an out-and-out action movie, so those expecting Neeson to kick as much ass as he did in Taken were in for a bit of a letdown.  It is a pretty cool neo-Eurospy movie in its own right, though!  The Berlin locations are shown to maximum advantage, as is Diane Kruger, who ably makes the case that she deserves further consideration as a future Bond Girl.  There are also some cool car chases and car crashes. The script, co-written by John Le Carré's son, Stephen Cornwell, plays fair with the audience, and I was surprised by a twist that was actually earned and managed quite well to explain a pretty preposterous set-up in a satisfying manner. (I have no idea how faithful it is to the novel by Didier van Cauwelaert upon which it's based.) If you missed Unknown in theaters, give it a try on DVD.

Tradecraft: Image Acquires The Double

Deadline reports that Image Entertainment has closed a pre-Cannes deal to distribute the Richard Gere spy thriller The Double in the United States.  I've been following this one for a while now, and was curious to see the directing debut of Michael Brandt, who, along with his partner Derek Haas, wrote 3:10 To Yuma and Wanted, as well as such still unmade spy fare as the Robert Ludlum adaptation The Matarese Circle. (held up indefinitely thanks to MGM's troubles) and Matt Helm (still in development, with Paul Attanasio penning the most recent draft)—and The Double. Gere plays a Cold War CIA operative called out of retirement to help a young FBI agent (Topher Grace) track a Russian assassin of Gere's own vintage.  Quantum of Solace Bond Girl Stana Katic rounds out the cast as a Russian prostitute.  While the acquisition sounds like good news, I'm not sure it is.  So far, Image's M.O. with their acquisitions has been to basically dump them directly to DVD after a very brief and very limited contractually obligated theatrical run a week or two in advance of that.  So unless they're expanding their distribution arm, this might mean that most people won't get to see The Double in theaters.  I hope that's not the case. 

Colombiana Trailer

Here's the trailer for the newest neo-Eurospy movie from Luc Besson's action factory, EuropaCorp.  "Neo-Eurospy," I should clarify, in that there's Gaul money behind this Olivier Megaton-directed actioner, not in that it's set in Europe or even that there are necessarily spies in it!  It's a close cousin of the spy movie, the professional assassin movie, and it's set in exotic South America.  But neo-Eurospy, like Eurospy, is to me more of a tone than a genre, and this one looks like it will fit right in with Besson's Transporter movies and Taken.  Plus, surely that tight black catsuit qualifies it automatically for all sorts of spy genres!  Colombiana, starring Zoe Saldana and Alias' Michael Vartan, is written by Besson and his Taken collaborator Robert Mark Kamen.  Megaton directed the neo-Eurospy flicks Transporter 3 and Hitman, and is slated to next direct Taken 2 for Besson.  Oh, and Colombiana looks pretty awesome!  Check it out:

Marvel Plots Spy Spin-Offs

If Marvel topper Kevin Feige is to be believed, it seems as if his company (apparently not content to remain safely in the superhero stratus they've so successfully dominated to date) is intent on giving EON Productions a run for its money as a producer of spy films.  Feige told The Playlist (via Dark Horizons) that Marvel is exploring spin-off films featuring Avengers characters (and agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) Black Widow and Hawkeye, as well as a film focusing on S.H.I.E.L.D. itself and presumably its director Nick Fury (played in the films by Samuel L. Jackson).

“There’s no definitive plans," he hedged, "but we have started talking and talking with Scarlett [Johansson, who debuted as Black Widow in Iron Man 2 and will reprise in The Avengers] about what a Widow movie could be. Internally, we’ve also started thinking what a Hawkeye movie could be, how we could continue to explore the organization S.H.I.E.L.D, which has a pretty big part in Thor, smaller parts in the two Iron Man films and has a giant part in The Avengers. What would a stand-alone S.H.I.E.L.D. [movie] be like? It all goes back to the comics. Sometimes the answer is—when looking at a certain run of issues— ‘no way’ and sometimes the answer is ‘maybe, let’s continue to explore it’ and certainly with Hawkeye and Black Widow those are two that we’re exploring.”

The interesting thing about those people and organizations he mentions is that they could very easily be combined into one movie rather than three separate productions.  Comics fans will no doubt be aware that not only have Black Widow and Hawkeye both done tours of duty with the high-tech spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D., but also shared a romantic history together.  So you could easily do a movie about S.H.I.E.L.D. focusing on those characters.  I do find it interesting that (going back to the first rumblings about this potential movie that we heard a few years ago) Feige is always careful to discuss a "S.H.I.E.L.D." movie and not a Nick Fury movie, which would seem more apt since the comic book title is Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.  I'd hazard that his deliberate wording reflects the apparently unforeseen drawbacks in casting a sixty-something year-old actor to play that part.  Unlike the Fury of the comics, Sam Jackson doesn't have access to an age-defying Infinity Formula, and thus seems an unlikely choice to topline an action film these days.  So unless they were to recast the role (which regular readers are probably aware I wouldn't be opposed to), I'd say it looks like the one-eyed S.H.I.E.L.D. ramrod will have to take a backseat to younger agents in his own movie.  Too bad.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week: Probe (1972)

In this week's batch of new Warner Archive made-on-demand titles is the rare Seventies TV pilot Probe, which led to the slightly re-formatted series Search.  Probe stars Hugh O'Brian as Hugh Lockwood, agent of a secret international private spy agency called... Probe.  Coming from Outer Limits producer Leslie Stevens, Probe was considered a science fiction series at the time due to the fantastic gadgets Lockwood had at his fingertips... but today they don't seem all that fantastic.  In fact, things like tiny transistor radios implanted in an agent's ear to maintain constant contact with headquarters and miniaturized cameras hidden in rings and biometric scanners are pretty much de rigueur in today's spy shows.  (The pilot for Exit Strategy, a possible Fox series for this fall, features all three pretty heavily with no hint of sci-fi.)  In Probe, they were still considered a gimmick, one which let technicians at Probe Control (like Burgess Meredith) feed their agent in the field all sorts of information as he needed it in real time.  The Macguffin in the telefilm is a cache of stolen diamonds with a Nazi connection, and among the mysterious figures involved with the loot is sexy femme fatale Elke Sommer, well known to Eurospy fans from movies like the great, great Deadlier Than the Male (review here).  Regular readers will know that Sommer's presence always sparks my own interest in a movie, so I'm eager to seek out Probe!  This being the Warner Archive, retail for this DVD-R is a frustratingly inflated $19.95, so if you want Probe at a reasonable price you'll have to wait for it to become available on Deep Discount, or to get it as part of Warner Archive's occasional bulk sales. 

There's also another classic Seventies TV pilot in this wave, but it's less spyish: Smile Jenny, You're Dead, the second of two pilot films for the David Janssen private eye series Harry O.  Now if only Warner Archive would release those series themselves...

Garth Ennis To Pen New Nick Fury Comic

Newsarama reports that Garth Ennis announced at Chicago's C2E2 convention last week (or the week before; this post has been gestating a long time now) that he'd be returning to Nick Fury with another miniseries in Marvel's mature readers MAX line. (Weirdly, he made this announcement on the Dynamite panel.)  The last time Ennis wrote a MAX series about Marvel's top superspy, the result was FURY, a comic that explored some very interesting ideas, but was ultimately undone by way over-the-top Ennis humor that, to me, felt incongruous with the character. Shortly after Rolling Stone Magazine named that series to its annual "Cool List," then Marvel CEO Avi Arad stopped by my local comic shop to shoot the breeze with fans, which I thought was pretty cool.  He asked what we thought of FURY, and since Nick Fury was largely absent from mainstream Marvel comics in those days and I was just glad to have him back in any form, I said I loved it.  That was a bit of a fib.  Turned out it was a loaded question from Arad, who clearly didn't love it.

"I always preferred the classic Steranko version," he said.  Which, of course, I do too.  Turns out Arad was trying to get a film version off the ground about then, with George Clooney attached to star.  The timing of Ennis' series and Rolling Stone's extra exposure was bad for his plans.  "But what do I know?" Arad asked.  "If Rolling Stone says it's cool..." Shortly after that chance encounter with Arad, Clooney bolted the project, and word was it was because the actor didn't like Ennis' take.  That always sounded a bit fishy to me, but putting two and two together with what Arad said in the comic shop, I'd guess the project collapsed due to opposing visions over which version of the character it should follow.  Despite the enthusiasm I professed for Ennis' FURY in front of Arad, my loyalty will always lie with the Steranko classic. However, it seems fated that that version was never destined to make it to the big screen.  When Nick Fury finally did turn up in cinemas at the end of Iron Man, it was in the guise of Samuel L. Jackson, playing another alternate comic book version of the eye-patched secret agent based on the Ultimate line of books.  Ennis' MAX version of Fury was just as far from the classic incarnation as Ultimate Nick Fury.  However, a few years later the Irish author reigned in his caricature a bit, presenting a pretty good version of his Fury in a Punisher MAX storyline, Mother Russia.  I'm hoping the version in this new series is closer to that take than Ennis' original one.  His vision for the book certainly piques my interest.  

The MTV Geek blog caught up with Ennis shortly after this new announcement and got some more details out of him on what to expect from the new MAX Fury series. Ennis revealed that he would be taking the character back to his Cold War roots (sounds good to me), and essentially using him to explore the last half-century of famous CIA operations.  What Ennis describes, in fact, sounds sort of like a Marvel MAX version of The Good Shepherd, which sounds pretty neat to me.  "The new series," he reveals, "will look quite closely at the Cold War. It’s a period of history that fascinates me and we will sort of move through its greatest hits. French Indochina, Cuba because you have do the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam in the early seventies when it’s really gotten going, and then on to Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 80s."

Ennis told the interviewer that he sees his Nick Fury as "the kind of black ops, master spy, adrenaline junkie who’s never going to give this up. I count that first Nick Fury series among my favorite things that I’ve ever done. I felt that it was 6 issues of high-octane madness and it was exactly what I wanted it to be! However, it’s not surprising at all that Marvel would not build on that. You can’t an ongoing franchise out of a guy who is ultimately a very negative character. He’s a war junkie, a guy who would almost start a war just so he can indulge his favorite passion. What really interests me about the character is the notion that the guy has been at war for effectively 60 or 70 years and still has the energy for it."

Goran Parlov will be handling the art chores on Ennis' new series. Besides the convention sketch pictured here, he's previously drawn the character in collaboration with Bill Sienkiewicz in two volumes of truly excellent Black Widow comics by Richard K. Morgan, Homecoming and The Things They Say About Her.  (Both are fantastic spy stories.)