First Trailer for the Kurtzman/Orci/Robert Rodriguez Spy Series Matador

Today's bringing a wealth of new spy trailers! Here's our first look at El Rey's upcoming spy series Matador (no relation to the Pierce Brosnan movie of the same name), about a CIA agent whose cover is an international soccer star. (Shades of I Spy!) The show, originally pitched as a "Latino James Bond," comes from the prolific minds of spy veterans Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Alias, Mission: Impossible 3), and the pilot is directed by Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids). Gabriel Luna, Nicky Whelan and Alfred Molina star.

Matthew Vaughn's The Secret Service Gets New Title, Poster, Trailer: Kingsman

Matthew Vaughn's (X-Men: First Class) adaptation of the Mark Millar/Dave Gibbons comic book The Secret Service has undergone a title change—for the better, I think. The Secret Service was always a pretty generic title for a spy movie (or comic, for that matter), but Kingsman, which was the title of the first arc of the comic, has a real ring to it. The new full title is a bit clunkier, but I suppose it's necessary to let readers of the comic know what it is, so movie is officially Kingsman: The Secret Service. And it's got an extremely cool poster, and a very promising trailer! The teen spy movie (a favorite subgenre of mine) stars relative newcomer Taron Egerton as a London street thug recruited into the secret service by his dapper Uncle Jack, a superspy played by Colin Firth (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). Mark Strong (Body of Lies), Samuel L. Jackson (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and... drum roll... Michael Caine (Billion Dollar Brain) co-star. (All-time spy movie vet Caine plays the head of the secret service.) Check out the trailer:

 

A Eurospy-Inspired Wendy's Commercial?

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

Tradecraft: Forthcoming Olen Steinhauer Novel Optioned for the Screen

Olen Steinhauer's next novel, All the Old Knives, isn't due out until next year, but it's already been optioned for a film. Deadline reports that Chockstone Pictures partners Steve Schwartz and Paula Mae Schwartz have teamed with Nick Wechsler (The Counselor) to acquire the film rights to the book, and set Steinhauer to pen the script. That's exciting! Steinhauer, for my money, is one of the best contemporary spy novelists out there, and it's kind of shocking that his books haven't yet been discovered by Hollywood. (The most obvious one to start with is the first of the Milo Weaver trilogy, The Tourist. Last we heard, after a period of development with George Clooney's company, that was in the capable hands of The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman and Covert Affairs writers Matt Corman and Chris Ord... but there's been no news since 2012.) Here's how the trade describes the plot, which Wechsler describes as "an extraordinary two-hander that will attract extraordinary talent."

The book takes place in the idyllic town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, where two ex-lovers–one CIA spy and one ex-CIA spy–meet for dinner and to reminisce. They relive their memories of the disastrous hijacking of Royal Jordanian Flt 127, which ended in the death of all onboard. It’s a failure that haunts the CIA’s Vienna station to this day. The question is whether Henry has come to dinner to rekindle the romance or get to the bottom of a conspiracy. It also becomes clear that one of the ex-lovers may not survive the meal.

Sounds good! The book won't be published until early 2015, but in the meantime Steinhauer has just released The Cairo Affair.

Anthony Horowitz on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Tonight!

There's a reason why Craig Ferguson has become my favorite late night host in the last couple of years. (And why I'll be devastated when he goes off the air at the end of this year.) It's because he has impeccable taste. Not only is he a huge Doctor Who fan, but lately he's become a huge Foyle's War fan as well. See what I mean? Impeccable taste! Foyle's War is of course the excellent period mystery series created by Anthony Horowitz starring Michael Kitchen (Tanner in the Pierce Brosnan Bond films) as a detective solving cases in the seaside town of Hastings during WWII. Naturally, given the wartime setting, lots of his cases involve espionage. And in the latest series, set after the war in the early days of the Cold War, Foyle has gone to work for MI5 and the show has become a full-time spy show. You can watch Ferguson's entertaining musings about Foyle's War during his opening on 4/22 and 4/23; middle on 4/21 and 4/22 and 4/23; and ending segments on 4/18 and 4/21, as well as with guests like Eddie Izzard.

Anyway, the upshot of Ferguson's infatuation with DCI Foyle is that tonight Horowitz will appear as a guest on his show! (The Late Late Show airs at 12:35 Eastern/Pacific, so I'm sorry this notice comes a bit late for East Coasters.) Spy fans know Horowitz not only as the creator of Foyle's War, but also as the author of the hugely successful teen spy novels featuring Alex Rider. Hopefully Ferguson will ask him about those, too. (He's also written for Poirot.) And hopefully Horowitz will drop some hints on the future of Foyle's War! At any rate, it's a pretty rare occurrence to see the creator of a great British spy series interviewed on American TV, so it should be worth tuning in.

The entire series of Foyle's War can currently be streamed on Acorn TV.

Tradecraft: Disney Channel Orders Spy Comedy

It's not just the primetime networks who are getting in on the spy action this season. Deadline reports that Disney Channel has ordered a half-hour spy comedy called K.C. Undercover. According to the trade, the live-action, multi-camera series "focuses on K.C. Cooper [played by mononymous Disney star Zendaya], a high school math whiz who’s training to be an undercover super spy, following in the footsteps of her parents. Each episode finds the Coopers balancing typical family issues while performing undercover missions to protect the country." I'm on record as being a fan of the teen spy genre (and Disney Channel was home to one of the best teen spy shows ever a decade ago, the animated Kim Possible), so I'm definitely curious to check out this family series when it premieres in early 2015.

Tradecraft: Bourne and Mission: Impossible Sequels Get New Writers

Two major spy franchises (both of which starred Jeremy Renner in their most recent entries) hired new writers in the last week. The Hollywood Reporter reports (in separate stories) that Justin Lin's Bourne Legacy sequel and Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible 5 have each gained new scribes. Andrew Baldwin, who wrote the forthcoming Idris Elba neo-Eurospy movie Bastille Day, has been brought on to rewrite Anthony Peckham's draft of the sequel to the Jeremy Renner spinoff of the Matt Damon trilogy. (Yup, it's a sequel to a spinoff, at least two degrees removed from the terrific Robert Ludlum source material, but presumably it will still have the name "Bourne" in the title... which is just kind of awkward at this point. They should just go ahead and call it what it is: The Bourne Continuation.) It was previously reported that Justin Lin, the man who revitalized the Fast & Furious franchise, would helm the movie. Hopefully he, Baldwin and Peckham will manage to improve on Tony Gilroy's lackluster Bourne Legacy.

Meanwhile, Will Staples has been tapped to do a pass on Mission: Impossible 5, on which Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) had previously done a draft. According to the trade, Staples' background is mostly in scripting videogames, but he's also got several film scripts in development, including King of Heists, to which Jeremy Renner is attached to star. (Does the Renner connection indicate that the actor will reprise his William Brandt role from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol? That's probably reading too deeply into Staples' hiring, but I'd certainly like to see Brandt return.) McQuarrie signed on to direct the fifth entry in the long-running Tom Cruise film series last year. He, Pearce and Staples have their work cut out for them if they hope to top Ghost Protocol, which was by far my favorite Mission: Impossible movie to date. Here's a hint, Will: do what Brad Bird did and look to the TV show for inspiration! Mission: Impossible 5 is set to open on Christmas Day next year.

Tradecraft: CBS and CW Pass on Spy Pilots

While ABC greenlit Agent Carter and NBC picked up two new spy pilots, CBS and its sibling network the CW both passed on their spy pilots. (I don't believe Fox had any in contention.) Deadline reports that CBS passed on Nikki Toscano's Red Zone (although drama Scorpion sounds like it might possibly have some espionage overtones), and the CW passed on the Kurtzman/Orci spy show Identity. Identity sounded very similar to Allegiance, which was picked up at NBC. Identity followed a young woman who reconnected with long-lost family members when she needed an organ transplant, only to be recruited by the CIA to be their eyes and ears inside the family, who they suspected of ties to terrorism. Allegiance is about a young man working for the CIA whose family is revealed to be Russian sleeper spies. I was particularly looking forward to Red Zone because of its stellar cast, which included Anthony Lapaglia, Kim Dickens and Aimee Garcia. Lapaglia played a former CIA operative now working as a high school football coach pulled back into action after a deadly terrorist attack in Washington D.C. According to the network's synopsis, he was "forced to investigate closer to home," which makes Red Zone sound a bit similar to Identity and Allegiance as well.

Both networks also lost existing spy series. Nikita ended its run on the CW this season, while CBS cancelled freshman drama Intelligence.

First Footage of Pierce Brosnan in November Man

The Solution Entertainment Group, who's handling international sales on the film, has offered us our first look at Pierce Brosnan's return to spying in the eagerly awaited November Man, based on the Bill Granger novel There Are No Spies. Bear in mind that this is a sizzle reel and not a trailer or a teaser, so it highlights action rather than story. Despite the terrible choice of music (I recommend watching on mute; there's no dialogue so you won't miss anything), the action looks pretty great. I can't wait to see a real trailer! That should be pretty soon, because, as previously reported, Relativity releases November Man in the United States on August 27. Olga Kurylenko, Luke Bracey and Will Patton costar. And speaking of music, Marco Beltrami provides the real score, and I look forward to hearing him do spy music!

Thanks to Jack Christian for the alert and MI6-HQ for the video!

Tradecraft: ABC Picks Up Marvel's Cold War Spy Series Agent Carter, Renews Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (UPDATED)

I'm afraid I fell behind on last week's flurry of network pickups. I was working all weekend, and now I'm catching up. But NBC isn't the only network to greenlight new spy series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, ABC not only renewed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but also picked up another Marvel espionage series, Agent Carter starring Hayley Atwell. Set in the early days of the Cold War in 1946, Agent Carter follows Atwell's Peggy Carter, Captain America's unrequited love interest from Captain America: The First Avenger as she works for the covert agency SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve), the Marvel Cinematic Universe's equivalent of the OSS and predecessor to S.H.I.E.L.D. Presumably over the course of the series, we'll witness the birth of S.H.I.E.L.D. as well, since it was revealed during Atwell's old-age makeup cameo in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that she was one of the founders of the organization (in its MCU incarnation, anyway). Ensuring tight continuity with the Marvel movies, Captain America and Winter Soldier screenwriters Stephen McFeeley and Christopher Marcus wrote the first episode and will executive produce the series along with Marvel's Jeph Loeb (author of such classic comics as Batman: The Long Halloween and Spider-man: Blue). Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, creators of the short-lived but highly entertaining Reaper, serve as executive producers and showrunners. (Another promising sign!)

If you've seen the Marvel One-Shot short Agent Carter (available on the Iron Man 3 Blu-ray and DVD), then you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect from the show, which was ordered straight to series without a pilot... and the short is really pretty great! While the official synopsis says that "Peggy must balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions for Howard Stark all while trying to navigate life as a single woman in America, in the wake of losing the love of her life -- Steve Rogers," I've seen nothing so far to indicate whether or not Dominic Cooper (Fleming) will reprise his Howard Stark role from the movies and the short. What the trade does offer is that "sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Agent Carter will be a short-order series and likely used as a 'bridge show' to air during the second season hiatus of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., with both series ultimately being tied-in together."

After a promising start, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. disappointed me for most of its first season, but finally started to live up to its potential following the closely tied in events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (I was delighted when we finally got an action scene with Coulson's flying Corvette, but it still wasn't the full-blown chase scene I so desperately crave...) I look forward to seeing it come into its own in Season 2. But even more, I look forward to seeing the irrepressible Hayley Atwell in a period spy series! While what I'd love to see most would be a S.H.I.E.L.D. series set in the Sixties (the Golden Age of Steranko's Nick Fury comic book), I'll settle pretty happily for the combination of one set now and (even better) one set in the late Forties! Atwell was excellent in a similar role in another 1940s-set spy miniseries, Restless (based on a novel by recent James Bond author William Boyd), playing a British agent operating in the United States on the eve of America's involvement in WWII.

UPDATE: Hayley Atwell confirmed that the Agent Carter series order is for eight episodes, which will bridge the two halves of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season.

Read my S.H.I.E.L.D. primer here.

Fox and M. Night Shyamalan Offer New Twist on The Prisoner

I had heard about M. Night Shyamalan's new Fox series Wayward Pines, and I knew it was being billed as his homage to (or ripoff of, depending on your point of view) Twin Peaks, but I didn't realize until watching this trailer unveiled today that it would be equally inspired by The Prisoner. Or so it looks. I'm honestly not sure if that makes me want to see it, or especially keen to avoid it. We've already had one bad remake of The Prisoner (though at least that introduced us to Hayley Atwell) and Shyamalan hasn't impressed me since Unbreakable. But for better or worse, here's a look at Shyamalan's tale of a "secret agent" (as everyone keeps calling Matt Dillon's Secret Service agent) who wakes up to find himself sequestered as a prisoner in a mysterious village full of eccentric characters.

State of Affairs Trailer

NBC has released a long-form trailer for one of the spy pilots the network recently ordered to series. Here's an extended look at State of Affairs, the Washington-set Katherine Heigl CIA drama. Alfre Woodard, Adam Kaufman, Sheila Vand, Cliff Chamberlain, Tommy Savas and Leslie Odom, Jr. costar, and Joe Carnahan (The Blacklist, The A-Team) directed the pilot. The network is still searching for a showrunner. State of Affairs will air in the Blacklist slot, Mondays at 10pm following The Voice, starting November 17. I think this looks pretty good! Clearly taking some cues from Zero Dark Thirty, I like that this series looks to keep its analysts in Langley (or Washington), while SAD or special forces carry out the missions overseas. And from the looks of things, it does so in a pretty thrilling manner! (I would expect no less of Carnahan.) How far into the season do you think we'll get before Heigl's out in the field herself? I hope the writers resist that urge. We already have Sydney Bristow and Annie Walker.

Tradecraft: NBC Goes Spy Crazy With Pilot Pickups

With network upfronts coming next week, a number of pilot pickups are already being announced. This season saw more spy pilots in contention for series orders than I can ever remember, so it will be interesting to see how many actually make it to the air. NBC is the first out of the gate with spy orders, and amazingly they've picked up both of their spy pilots, plus an international conspiracy thriller that sounds sure to include an espionage angle. Deadline reports that NBC has picked up State of Affairs, starring Katherine Heigl and Alfre Woodard, and Allegiance (formerly known as Coercion), starring Hope Davis and Gavin Stenhouse.

In State of Affairs, Heigl plays CIA analyst Charleston "Charlie" Tucker whose duties include briefing the President (Woodard) daily on developing crises around the world. Charlie also has a personal relationship with the President, having once been engaged to her son before he died in a terrorist attack. According to the trade, "Charlie survived that attack and now is determined to bring the perpetrators to justice."

Allegiance was developed by Bourne series veteran George Nolfi, who wrote and directed the pilot based on the Israeli format The Gordin Cell. No doubt its series order has something to do with the success of The Americans on FX, because like that show Allegiance focuses on a Russian sleeper cell operating in the United States. But while the cable show is a Cold War period piece, Allegiance is very much contemporary. Stenhouse plays Alex O'Connor, a young, idealistic CIA analyst on the Russia desk, who learns that his affluent parents, Mark (Scott Cohen) and Katya (Hope Davis), are really deep cover Russian sleeper agents freshly reactivated with the goal of turning him as well. NBC previously explored a series based on The Gordin Cell last season, when Peter Berg developed it as M.I.C.E. That version didn't go anywhere.

Additionally, the network has also greenlit the international conspiracy thriller Odyssey, starring Anna Friel and Peter Facinelli. Odyssey follows multiple storylines around the globe all building to one massive industrial military complex conspiracy involving a multinational corporation secretly funding Al Qaeda terrorists. Although the main characters are a soldier, a lawyer and a hacker, a series with that premise seems bound to eventually dip into the Intelligence alphabet as well.

The Avengers Return to Comics With New Boom! Series

Boom! Studios may have wrapped up their ongoing Steed and Mrs. Peel comic, based on the greatest spy series ever The Avengers, but that doesn't mean they're done with the classic characters! They've just solicited a new six-issue Avengers miniseries, Steed and Mrs. Peel: We're Needed, written by Ian Edginton and drawn by Marco Cosentino. I'm very excited to hear this, because Edginton is one of my favorite comics writers. He's shown that he can be very faithful to source material in his four excellent Sherlock Holmes adaptations (and one equally excellent John Carter one) with I.N.J. Culbard. (I'm sure Cosentino will be great, but I can't help wishing Culbard were illustrating this one too.) Let's hope he brings that same fidelity to The Avengers. It sounds like he will from this interview on Bleeding Cool, in which he says that he grew up with The Avengers and also name-checks his favorite ITC shows. According to the plot description in Boom!'s solicitation, it sounds like Edginton's Steed and Mrs. Peel will also reference one of those ITC series pretty directly: "When an old associate of John Steed is killed, a grand conspiracy is suspected. This will take Steed and Peel to a strange village, where one of the spies finds themself a prisoner." The Avengers originally sent up The Prisoner and his Village in the classic Tara King episode "Wish You Were Here," but I look forward to reading Edginton's take. Steed and Mrs. Peel: We're Needed #1 is solicited in the current (May) Previews for a July release, so place a pre-order now at your local comic book shop.

I've been a fan of all of Boom!'s Steed and Mrs. Peel comics so far (as well as their reprint of the 90s Grant Morrison miniseries, "The Golden Game"), so if you're a fan of the show and you've missed any, check out the collected editions. (Obviously the name "The Avengers" couldn't be used for comics since Stan Lee blatantly stole it for that other comic back in the Sixties!)

Order Steed and Mrs. Peel: The Golden Game here.
Order Steed and Mrs. Peel Volume 1 here.
Order Steed and Mrs. Peel Volume 2 here.
Order Steed and Mrs. Peel Volume 3 here.

Read my review of Steed and Mrs. Peel #0 here.
Read my interview with Steed and Mrs. Peel writer Caleb Monroe here.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service Radioplay Now Streaming On BBC Site

BBC Radio 4's fourth James Bond radio drama starring Toby Stephens (Die Another Day, Cambridge Spies) as 007, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," is now available streaming on the BBC website. It will be available for six days, so be sure to listen to the 90-minute radioplay sometime this week! Alfred Molina (The Company, Raiders of the Lost Ark) plays Bond's arch-enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and Joanna Lumley (The New Avengers), a veteran of the feature film version of this story, plays his consort Irma Bunt.  Alex Jennings (Ashenden, Smiley's People) co-stars as Marc-Ange Draco, Lisa Dillon (Cambridge Spies) as Tracy, and Joanna Cassidy (The Fourth Protocol) as Ruby. John Standing, Julian Sands and Janie Dee reprise their roles as M, Q and Moneypenny, respectively. Martin Jarvis again plays Ian Fleming in a narrator role. The previous BBC radio adaptations starring Stephens have been "Dr. No," "Goldfinger" and "From Russia With Love."

Tradecraft: Statham/McCarthy Movie Gets a Title, More Stars

Bridesmaids director Paul Feig's Melissa McCarthy/Jason Statham spy comedy has gotten a title: Spy. Yes, that title's already taken by a UK sitcom (an American remake last pilot season didn't make it to series), but that doesn't seem to be a concern to Feig and distributor Fox. The movie has also gained a few more stars, beefing up an already impressive cast. In separate stories, Deadline reports that spy veteran Morena Baccarin (Homeland) and former White House staffer Alison Janney (The West Wing) have come aboard. They join an international all-star cast including McCarthy, Statham, Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Bobby Cannavale, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Miranda Hart, Peter Serafinowicz, Bjorn Gustafsson, and Verka Serduchka. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Baccarin will play a deadly CIA agent named Karen Walker, while Janney will play what Deadline describes as "top CIA agent Elaine Crocker." I'm not sure if by "top agent" they mean that she's at the top of her game or at the top of the Agency, as the M of this world. The latter would make sense given Janney's formidable resume. McCarthy plays a CIA analyst drawn into the field for the first time. While that's the same logline as the Steve Carrell version of Get Smart, Feig has insisted in the past that his film takes place in a realistic world and is closer in character to Casino Royale than Get Smart or Johnny English. The comedy presumably comes from McCarthy's fish out of water situation rather than the world. Spy began filming last month in Budapest and opens next May.

Tradecraft: Mark Strong Spies WIth Sacha Baron Cohen (UPDATED)

For a change, frequent villain Mark Strong (Body of Lies, Zero Dark Thirty) will be playing a good guy spy in Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier's spy comedy Grimsby... though probably an annoyed good guy. Deadline reports that Strong has been cast as Baron Cohen's brother. Strong is a superspy, and Baron Cohen (Borat) is his idiotic football hooligan sibling. The odd couple pair are forced to go on the run together, and comedy ensues. Though he usually plays baddies, I actually much prefer Strong when he plays good guys (or sort of good guys), like in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He was also very good sending up his villainous image in a recent Jaguar commercial, so I look forward to seeing him in a comedy! Grimsby is scheduled to open in the U.S. on July 31, 2015.

UPDATE: In a separate story, Deadline adds that Annabelle Wallis, who played Ian Fleming's ill-fated WWII girlfriend Muriel Wright in the BBC miniseries Fleming, will co-star. Wallis' other spy credits include Strike Back, Pan-Am, Body of Lies and X-Men: First Class.

Trailer: Pierce Brosnan in The Love Punch

Pierce Brosnan in a wetsuit? Leading a team in scaling a cliff? (Still in that wetsuit, no less!) In a car chase through an exotic European capital? And a Pink Panther reference to boot? I'm so in! Here's the trailer for Brosnan's latest, The Love Punch, starring the former 007 and the always fantastic Emma Thompson as a divorced couple who reunite to pull off a jewel heist when their retirement savings are stolen. The Love Punch opens in the United States on May 23. We'll next see the busy Brosnan a few months later, returning to all-out spy action in November Man (with Olga Kurylenko), on August 27. After that he's got two more high-profile spy roles already in the can; we're still awaiting release dates for Survivor (with Milla Jovovich) and The Coup (with Owen Wilson).

Equalizer Teaser Poster Unveiled

Yahoo! has unveiled the teaser poster for the feature film version of the 80s TV series The Equalizer. After being in development for years and years and going through multiple star attachments, the movie opens in September. Denzel Washington stars as McCall, the former secret agent who atones for past sins by using his spy skills to help those with the odds against them. (I wish the poster said, "Odds against you? Need help? Call the Equalizer." But this is actually a pretty cool image.) As reported last week, the second season the TV show will finally materialize on Region 1 DVD the month before in conjunction with the movie.

Tradecraft: State of Affairs Elects Alfre Woodard President

NBC's Katherine Heigl CIA series State of Affairs has cast its U.S. President: Alfre Woodard. Deadline reports that Woodard (My Own Worst Enemy) will play the Commander in Chief that Heigl's CIA attaché briefs daily on world crises. Additionally, the trade blog also reports that Leslie Odom, Jr. (Person of Interest) will play Mitchell Manning, the President's Chief of Staff. Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) directs the pilot. Last year he directed the pilot for The Blacklist, and that not only got picked up to series, but went on to become one of the biggest hits of the season. Will he do it again?

Tradecraft: Spy Comedy American Ultra Assembles Eclectic Cast

This one sounds very intriguing to me. Deadline reports that Lionsgate has lined up Jesse Eisenberg (Now You See Me, The Social Network), Kristen Stewart (Jumper, Twilight), Walton Goggins (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy), Bill Pullman (Torchwood, The Equalizer), Topher Grace (The Double), Sharon Stone (Agent X), John Leguizamo (Executive Decision) and Tony Hale (Chuck, Veep) for an action-comedy called American Ultra. According to the trade, Eisenberg plays "a stoner slacker whose secret past as a highly-trained sleeper agent upturns his small-town life with girlfriend (Kristen Stewart) as he’s thrust into a covert government operation." A stoner spy comedy? I like it! That's something a bit different. Nima Nourizadeh (Project X) is directing, from a script by Max Landis (Chronicle). Filming kicked off this week.

GoldenEye Returns to the Big Screen in Los Angeles Next Month

Wow, it's a really good season for Bond on the big screen in Los Angeles right now! Hot on the heels of these two rare Never Say Never Again screenings (and a Goldfinger/Thunderball double bill at the Egyptian earlier this year) comes a chance to see Pierce Brosnan's 1995 Bond debut GoldenEye projected in 35mm at the Arclight in Hollywood. While the classic Connery movies play the revival circuit quite frequently, the other Bond actors get considerably less exposure. Lazenby is getting screened more and more lately (a great thing), and occasionally you'll get a Moore. But unless someone is doing a whole retrospective of multiple Bond movies, Dalton and Brosnan are hard to come by in theatrical showings. Which is why I'm quite pleased that the Arclight will be playing GoldenEye as part of their Arclight Presents series on Tuesday, May 20 at 8:00pm. Tickets are available for pre-order from the theater's website at a cost of $14 for non-members. Wow, it's hard to believe that GoldenEye is almost twenty years old! I still remember the exhilaration of seeing that trailer for the first time in '95. (Before Species... and long before trailers debuted online instead of in theaters.) After six years away from cinemas (unfortunately my formative years as a Bond fan, in middle school and high school), it was so exciting to see Brosnan step out and address the audience. "You were expecting somebody else?"

Thanks to Neil for alerting me to this one!

Another Chance to See Never Say Never Again on the Big Screen in Los Angeles, Paired With The Rock

Well, I suppose Never Say Never Again screenings are like those proverbial city busses. You wait and wait for one to come along, and then there's another one right behind it! Only two months ago I was writing about how rare it was to see the 1983 Rogue Bond picture play at revival houses. In my fourteen years living in Los Angeles, it hadn't played once, whereas in that same time span all of the other Bond movies (including the other rogue one, the '67 Casino Royale) had played at least twice each—and far more often that that in the case of the other Connerys! So for the sake of the film's relative rarity, I encouraged anyone in the area, even those Bond fans who (for some odd reason) dislike the movie, to be sure to see it when it played for three nights at the New Beverly on a double bill with Diamonds Are Forever. And now, just a scant few months after that, it's playing once again on the big screen in L.A., this time at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. (My favorite local theater—and the same one that's showing Prisoner episodes a few days later.) And this time on an even better double bill than before. It's a Sean Connery night with Never Say Never Again (1983) and The Rock (1996). They're running this double feature as part of their "Unofficial Sequels" series, as Connery's character in The Rock is a former British agent and the script makes some sly nods to Bond. You could also call it a Connery/Clement/La Frenais night, since writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (Otley, Spies of Warsaw) contributed to both scripts (albeit on both occasions uncredited). Whatever the reason for the pairing, I think it's a great combination! For me, Connery got tougher and tougher as he grew older, and as much as I love him in the Bond role in the Sixties, he's at his peak of asskicking in these two movies. The double feature screens on Friday, April 25 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $11 for non-members, and available for pre-order through Fandango.

As I said the last time I was writing about a local Never Say Never Again screening, personally, I really like the movie a lot. Sure, the plot is a rehash of Thunderball; (but let's face it: that can actually be said of quite a lot of movies over the years!) sure, it may not have the Bond Theme for legal reasons, and sure, there are unfamiliar staff holding down the fort at MI6 (though I get a huge kick out of Edward Fox's quarrelsome M and Alec McCowen's cockney Q), but it does have SEAN CONNERY back in the role he had abandoned twelve years prior—and looking fitter and more interested than he did in his last official picture, Diamond Are Forever. And it's got Barbara Carrera as one of the best (and best costumed) Bond villainesses ever (and a virtual prototype for Xenia Onatopp, another contender for that crown), Klaus Maria Brandauer as a superbly unhinged villain, Bernie Casey as a terrific Felix Leiter, a fight with Pat Roach, and stellar cinematography (all the better in glorious 35mm!) by the man who shot Raiders of the Lost Ark, Douglas Slocombe! And it's got the immortal line, "I wouldn't know. I've never lost." Yeah, I really love it.

It was also my own frustrating White Whale for a long time in one intangible, experiential aspect of my personal Bond collection: collecting big screen viewings. My first cinematic Bond experience as a kid was Licence to Kill, but over my years living in Los Angeles I managed eventually to rack up all the others in theatrical screenings. (Most far more than once.) But Never Say Never Again eluded me until 2012, when it played in New York while I just happened to be visiting that city. Unfortunately, I took the wrong train, and ended up missing the first half of the film. So when the opportunity came to see it at the New Beverly earlier this year, I went twice in one weekend! And now I guess I'm making up for lost time all these years, because I'm planning to go to this showing as well.

Incidentally, in other Never Say Never Again news (and more helpful news for people who don't happen to live within driving distance of Los Angeles), the Blu-ray, which has been out of print for some time and was commanding prohibitively steep prices last year, has recently come back into stock at Amazon through third part sellers for reasonable prices. I don't know if this actually means that it's back in print (doubtful), or just that someone uncovered some unsold stock. In any case, if you don't already own it on Blu-ray (and it's a shockingly good high-def transfer for a film EON would rather MGM bury somewhere and forget), you might want to grab it now while the grabbing is good, because in a few months the supply might dwindle and it might go back to being a $60 disc.

Empire Offers Details on the Spooks/MI-5 Feature Film

Empire (via Dark Horizons) has the first details on the new big-screen movie version of the long-running UK spy series Spooks (known in the U.S. as MI-5)—and this picture of series star Peter Firth (The Hunt for Red October) reprising his role of spymaster Harry Pearce, and newcomer Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones) as MI-5 agent Will Crombie. Director Bharat Nalluri (a veteran of the series) told the magazine that the movie, Spooks: The Greater Good, will have a much larger scope than the TV show. "The canvas is huge on this," he said. "We’re running from Moscow to Berlin to London. It’s a story of the old world and new world.... We’ve got motorbikes, attacks on convoys, huge sniper sequences in the middle of London. It’s set piece after set piece." The movie is designed to be accessible to new viewers who haven't seen the show, so it will largely focus on new characters. Harrington will be joined by fellow newcomers Tuppence Middleton (Cleanskin, The Lady Vanishes), Jennifer Ehle (Zero Dark Thirty) and Elyes Gabel (Exit Strategy). The only other series veteran officially slated to return is Tim McInnerny as Harry's slippery colleague on the Joint Intelligence Committee, Oliver Mace, though Nalluri also hints that Matthew Macfadyen, who starred on the show's first two seasons and then made a surprise appearance in the series finale, might pop up as Tom Quinn. The movie's plot finds MI-5 mired in scandal after letting a terrorist escape during a routine handover, and Harry's career in shambles. "You could say that Harry is having a Nick Fury moment," says Nalluri, alluding to events in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. When Harry disappears amidst his agency's turmoil, it's up to Crombie to get to the bottom of the disappearance and find out what's really going on. The movie is scheduled for release in Britain in 2015; I really hope they get a U.S. distributor as well! The series was pretty excellent, and the prospect of it transitioning to a regular film franchise sounds like a very promising one to me.

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

Awesome Teaser for 24: Live Another Day as Miniseries Assembles Impressive Cast

Fox has released a really awesome new movie-style trailer for the upcoming 12-episode 24 "event series," Live Another Day, showcasing its new London setting:

Deadline previously reported that Chuck's Yvonne Strahovski will spy again alongside Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer, and in a
separate story that the great Stephen Fry will play the British Prime Minister and Tate Donovan will play the White House Chief of Staff. Deadline later reported that Bond alum Colin Salmon (Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day) had joined the project as an American general.

Here's a previous trailer:

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Trailer: Le Carre's A Most Wanted Man

After two different trailers over the past year that popped up online and were immediately taken down, U.S. distributor Lionsgate finally released an official trailer for Anton Corbijn's John le Carré adaptation A Most Wanted Man. Unsurprisingly, it looks quite good indeed! This trailer doesn't give away as many major plot points as the illicit ones did (I suspect they were created as sizzle reels to attract distributors and not proper trailers), but sadly it also doesn't really show much of Willem Dafoe as Tommy Brue. I still want to know if he's going to play him with a Scottish accent! I suspect that they've made the character German for some reason. Clearly from the trailer, there are things that have been changed from the book. Sadly, A Most Wanted Man will mark one of the final lead performances from the brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the actor's untimely death earlier this year is sure to cast a long shadow over the film for audiences. Gunter Bachman is a juicy role, however, and I cannot wait to see how Hoffman plays him. A Most Wanted Man opens in America on July 25.

Filming recently commenced on the next le Carré film adaptation, Our Kind of Traitor.

Second Season of The Equalizer Finally Coming to DVD! (UPDATED)

As hoped for, apparently the upcoming big screen version of The Equalizer has spurred enough new interest in the original 1985-89 Edward Woodward TV series to at long last yield a DVD release of Season 2! Way back in 2008, Universal released The Equalizer: Season One on DVD. Fans hoped that release would be quickly followed by the other three seasons, but that never happened. All that time the feature version was in development (Russell Crowe was at one time attached when the film was set up at The Weinstein Company; now his American Gangster co-star Denzel Washington is starring for Warner Bros.), and word was Uni was waiting for the film to materialize. Now that's finally happening, but it's not Universal releasing the DVDs. Instead the title has been licensed out to VEI, distributed in the U.S. by Millennium. TV Shows On DVD reports that they've set a street date of August 26 for The Equalizer: Season Two, and an MSRP of just $29.99. (It's currently listed for pre-order on Amazon for a mere $20.99!) Additionally, on June 3 VEI will whet our appetites with a single-disc "Best Of" release. The Equalizer starred Woodward as former spy McCall, atoning for his past sins by helping those who found the odds against them. The extra-textual backstory was that Woodward had of course played a spy himself much earlier in his career in Callan. Guest stars on the show's second season include Kevin Spacey, Steve Buscemi, William H. Macy, John Goodman and Christian Slater. (UPDATED with artwork.)

In other Edward Woodward news, it's just come to my attention that Brian Clemens' 1998 revival of his hit Seventies action spy series, CI5: The New Professionals, starring Woodward as the tough leader of the updated team, was released on DVD in Australia back in 2012. The Region 4 release from the Madman label marks the first time that show has been available on DVD anywhere, so Woodward completists will want to take note.

Prisoner Episodes to Screen in Los Angeles

Los Angeles spy fans will have the rare opportunity to see episodes of The Prisoner on the big screen later this month. On Sunday, April 27, the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood (the best theater in town) will play two episodes of the groundbreaking Patrick McGoohan ITC spy show as part of their Art Directors Guild Film Society Series "Worlds Built to Order." Of all the Prisoner episodes, the one I'd most like to see on the big screen would be the series finale "Fall Out"... but I suppose the programmers have to consider people who have never seen any episodes, and it would be unfair to spoil the show's fantastic conclusion for them. And the episodes they've selected are not bad consolation prizes by any means! They will screen the series premiere, "Arrival," and the classic episode "The Schizoid Man" (an excellent choice for examples of the show's sublime art direction), in which McGoohan's Number 6 confronts his doppelganger, Number 12. But the rare opportunity to see Prisoner episodes on the big screen isn't all that audiences will see that night! There will also be a discussion of Sixties film design (illustrated by movie clips) with an illustrious panel including Nathan Crowley (Designer of the Dark Knight trilogy and the upcoming Interstellar), Alex McDowell (Designer of Man of Steel and Watchmen), and Arnold Schwartzman, O.B.E. (Oscar-winning Director and Graphic Designer, whose spy credits include the current UK Len Deighton paperbacks), and moderated by production designer John Muto (Species, Home Alone).

The episodes will be screened from a Blu-ray, but I suspect they'll look just fine. I saw some Avengers episodes projected from DVD at the Egyptian years ago, and even those looked okay.

The screening begins at 5:30pm on Sunday, April 27. Full details on the event can be found on the Egyptian's website, and tickets can be purchased through Fandango for $11.

Tradecraft: Summit Developing Female Spy Team Movie

According to Deadline, Summit Entertainment has tapped Twilight writer Melissa Rosenberg to "toughen up" an ensemble female spy script they've been developing for a long time. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian are producing. The project has a complex history. Deadline reports that it began life as a comedy called Blank Slate with a script by The Rock's Douglas S. Cook and David Weisberg. RED writers Erich and John Hoeber next penned a version under the title The Kiss Off. Rosenberg's mandate now is to change directions entirely, re-framing what was originally envisioned as a comedy into a gritty action movie along the lines of Salt. And it's currently untitled. There's no log line provided, only the news that the story focuses on a group of female spies. Late last year we learned that Rosenberg was working on a female-centered spy series for ABC called Clandestine. I'm not sure what's happening with that now; I know it's not in the mix as a fall pilot contender at the network, but since pilot season now basically lasts all year, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's dead. As I said then, while I know there are a lot of spy fans who will roll their eyes at Rosenberg's Twilight work, it bears remembering that her resume is actually a lot more diverse than just that franchise. Her TV credits include the short-lived spy drama The Agency as well as Dexter, The O.C. and one of my favorites, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Plus, there can never be too many female-centered spy movies!

Tradecraft: Pierce Brosnan's November Man Due in Theaters This August!

Here's some very exciting news! The Pierce Brosnan spy thriller November Man, recently acquired for U.S. distribution by Relativity Media, at long last has a release date. According to Variety, it will hit American theaters on August 27. With U.S./Russian tensions ratcheting up lately, it's a timely release for an espionage story involving Russian politics. Brosnan plays Bill Granger's ex-CIA operative Devereaux in an adaptation of Granger's novel There Are No Spies. In the movie, the trade reports, Devereaux is brought out of retirement to track down his former pupil (Luke Bracey) in a complex spy plot involving the Russian president-elect and high-level CIA officers. Former Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko co-stars, and Roger Donaldson (No Way Out, The Bank Job) directs. November Man has taken a very long road to the screen. Brosnan spent years trying to get it off the ground, and it looked finally set to start shooting back in 2012, but didn't end up going before cameras until 2013. Even then fans still wondered when they'd get to see it, since it was produced independently and didn't have a distributor lined up. But last month it got that distributor, and now it has a release date! And come August, we'll be seeing a film with the potential to launch a second Brosnan spy franchise.