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.)

Tradecraft: Mission: Impossible Writer Tackles Jack Ryan

Another month, another screenwriter on the interminably long-in-development Jack Ryan origin film.  Following a succession of scribes that's included Hossein Amini, Adam Cozad, Anthony Peckham, Cozad again and, briefly, Steve Zaillian (who changed his mind before actually contributing a draft), Paramount has now turned to Big Bucks Franchise Man David Koepp to try his hand at rebooting Tom Clancy's famed CIA analyst in the person of Chris Pine.  Deadline reports that Koepp will be paid seven figures for his rewrite (still based on the Cozad draft), a fee he's earned from contributions to such mega-hit franchises as Jurassic Park, Spider-man, Men in Black and Indiana Jones, to name just a few of his blockbusters.  His most major previous contribution to the spy genre was collaborating on the screenplay for the first Mission: Impossible film with Zaillian and Robert Towne.  (I don't know which one of those writers came up with the brilliant idea of making Jim Phelps a traitor, but I'd like to give that one a punch in the face.)  According to the trade blog, Paramount hopes to start production on the new Jack Ryan movie in January, after Pine finishes with the Star Trek sequel.  (It was previously slated to film before Trek.)  Lost's Jack Bender, who must be a very patient man, is still attached to direct.

Tradecraft: The Balrog Supremacy?

The Saruman Ultimatum?  The Gondor Inheritance?  Unlikely as each of those titles may sound, Deadline reports that Ron Howard has attached himself to a pitch by Max Landis described as a blend of Robert Ludlum and J.R.R. Tolkien.  That's not very descriptive, but actually opens up a lot of truly intriguing possibilities!  A Bourne-like spy adventure set in a fantasy world?  A real-world spy story featuring an all-powerful One Ring as the MacGuffin?  Or a regular person from our world who washes ashore in a fantasy land with no memories?  You could go in lots of different creative directions with that curious mash-up, and I'd probably pay to see nearly all of them.  Max Landis is the son of John Landis, and previously collaborated with his father on episodes of the spooky anthology shows Masters of Horror ("The Deer Woman") and Fear Itself.  He's also sold a few feature specs, though nothing that's been made yet.  As for this one, it seems unlikely it will be made any time soon with Ron Howard attached to direct. Howard's currently committed to direct about a billion hours of feature film and television based on Stephen King's Dark Tower epic, which also features a mixture of fantasy and technothriller.  What I wonder, though, is what ever happened to that film of undiluted Ludlum that Howard was once attached to direct, The Parsifal Mosaic?  Even if he's no longer involved, I do hope it's still in development.  That's one of Ludlum's most cinematic novels, and a great movie just waiting to be made. 

Oh, and the real title of this spy/fantasy project is Amnesty.  Hm.  Doesn't really get across the premise.  In the unlikely scenario that they do decide to switch to a title more befitting the illlicit marriage of Ludlum and Tolkien, I think my personal choice would be The Frodo Ambiguity.  It has a nicer ring to it than Amnesty, does't it?

Tradecraft: Ving Rhames Is Black Jack

Well, he might not be in the new Mission: Impossible movie (or so the rumors go), but now Ving Rhames has his very own starring spy gig. According to Deadline, the actor has been cast as the lead in that Comedy Central spy pilot we heard about last month, Black Jack.  This is the one from writer Michael Starrbury and producers David Gordon Green (who's also written the non-comedic remake of Ice Station Zebra) and Danny McBride (the team behind Your Highness), among many others. Green will direct the pilot, which finds the government's top black ops operative (Rhames) forced into retirement. Needless to say, he has trouble adjusting to normal life. Whenever I read about this concept, I picture Jack Bauer in a PTA meeting and I laugh.  I hope the actual product lives up to my unfounded notions...

Lauren Stamile Handed a Burn Notice

Lauren Stamile, who made a memorable impression last summer with her guest appearance on Matt Nix's other show, The Good Guys, will join Nix's Burn Notice this season in a major role.  Stamile is probably best known for her recurring roles on Community (as Joel McHale's love interest, Professor Slater) and Gray's Anatomy (as Rose, the "other woman" who dared to come between the show's heroine and "Doctor McDreamy").  On Burn Notice, TVLine's Michael Ausiello reports that Stamile will play Kim Pearce, "a brilliant, unpredictable and formidable" CIA operative sent by the Agency to investigate the murder of another agent. "She leans on Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) to help her find the killer, only to learn that Michael himself may be involved." Interestingly, Stamile co-starred (playing Kate Jackson) with another former Burn Notice actress, Tricia Helfer (as Farrah Fawcett), in the 2004 TV movie Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels. (Now they need only find a role for Christina Chambers to collect all the fake Angels!)

Personally, I have to say, I'm thrilled to report this particular news item, because Lauren is a friend of mine and I think she'll make a wonderful addition to the Burn Notice gang. Stay tuned, because I have a feeling I just might be able to finagle an exclusive interview with her around the time her episodes start to air... [Update: Now you can read that interview here.]

As previously reported, after debuting in the last season's finale, The Tailor of Panama's Dylan Baker will also recur this season on Burn Notice. The new season begins June 23 on USA.

Tradecraft: The Bourne Mantle Goes To Jeremy Renner

The Hollywood Reporter reports what Latino Review scooped everybody on a few weeks ago: Jeremy Renner will star in Tony Gilroy's The Bourne Legacy, a spinoff from the popular Matt Damon series based on Robert Ludlum's novels.  For those keeping count, yes, that means that the Hurt Locker actor will be starring in three potential spy franchises at once.  Is he the new Michael Caine (who must have more spy roles to his credit than almost any other actor), or is he over-extending himself in a mad grab for every franchise dangled in front of him?  Besides The Bourne Legacy, Renner also stars alongside Tom Cruise (another actor with a number of espionage roles under his belt) in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (for which he's been widely touted as a potential successor to Cruise in future installments of the series) and The Avengers.  The latter is not based on the real Avengers of Sixties TV, but on the unrelated Marvel comic book series of the same name.  Yet Renner's role is still a spy one.  He plays Hawkeye, a super-agent of Nick Fury's spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D., and just the other day Marvel prexy Kevin Feige stated the company's hopes that Hawkeye will prove popular enough in Joss Whedon's movie to spin off into his own series.  So that's a lot of spying for Jeremy Renner.  I don't begrudge the guy taking all the starring roles he's offered (I mean, he's not even a proven star yet!), but as a spy fan I do kind of wish we had more variety to look forward to in our spy heroes.  It seems like Renner, Robert Downey Jr. and Daniel Craig now control a small monopoly on all franchises... so get used to them!

By the way: the guy behind Renner in that picture from The Hurt Locker is Anthony Mackie, who was supposedly also in contention for the new Bourne role.  He might have been a more interesting choice.

Age of Heroes Trailer

With a big tip of the hat to The Book Bond (the foremost site out there for news on the literary 007, by the way, and an absolutely required daily visit for me as we enter the home stretch toward the publication of Carte Blanche), here's the official trailer for that movie about Ian Fleming's 30 Assault Unit we've been following here since its initial announcement last year.  I have to say, I think it looks fantastic. It may not look particularly big budget, and it might use a questionable font, but that trailer pushes all my movie buttons--from its Ian Fleming-meets-The A-Team opening to the awesome action of a snowbound commandos in white camoflage.  Evidentally, it will receive theatrical release in Britain on May 20--though it's bound to be a limited engagement, since it's already been announced for DVD release in June. Neither venue seems particularly likely right now in America, which is too bad, because I am dying to see it! Age of Heroes stars former Bond villain Sean Bean, and James D'Arcy plays Commander Fleming.

Tradecraft: Missing Finds Its Man

Deadline reports that Kiwi actor Cliff Curtis (Live Free or Die Hard, Colombiana) has been cast as the male lead opposite Ashley Judd in ABC's Taken-with-a-woman series Missing.  Curtis will play Dax Miller, the CIA's London Deputy Station Chief tasked with bringing in former agent Becca Winstone (Judd) when she goes rogue, Liam Neeson-style, using her spy skills to tear up all of Europe in her search for her missing son.  Instead of hunting her down, Dax defies his orders an becomes a grudging ally to Becca.  Sean Bean was previously cast as Becca's late husband (also an agent), who will appear in flashbacks.  (Though when a high-profile actor like Bean is cast as a dead man, you have to wonder how long he'll stay dead...)  I found the pilot script for Missing to be the best of the fall spy pilots, and I'm very curious to watch it come to life this fall.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: More Spies and Spy Stars on MGM MOD

According to pre-order listings on Screen Archives Entertainment, MGM's next wave of MOD titles will include the spy movies The Fearmakers (1958) and The Ambassador (1984), along with the 1973 James Coburn pick-pocket movie Harry In Your Pocket (the only feature from Mission: Impossible mastermind Bruce Geller) and the rare 1962 horror film Burn, Witch, Burn!, one of the few theatrical star vehicles for eccentric TV spy hero Peter Wyngarde (Jason King).

Robert Mitchum, Ellen Burstyn and Rock Hudson (in his final role) star in The Ambassador, in which "an American ambassador, his wife, and her Arab lover are caught up in a dangerous game of intrigue, extortion, and murder, in the explosive Middle East." Jacques Tourneur's The Fearmakers prefigures The Manchurian Candidate, with Dana Andrews starring as a Korean War veteran who may have been brainwashed ostensibly helping the government ferret out Communist subversives. These made-to-order DVD-Rs should all be available around May 3. The last batch of MGM Limited Edition Collection titles, meanwhile (including The Destructors and Cloudburst), is now available for purchase on Amazon as well as SAE. No doubt these ones will be, too, come mid-May.

Upcoming Spy (And Dalton) DVDs: Eighties Miniseries Madness

TV Shows On DVD reports that Olive Films will release the Joan Collins WWII spy miniseries Monte Carlo on DVD this June. Based on the novel by Stephen Sheppard, Monte Carlo follows the rich and famous as they mingle with international spies in the glamorous titular city during the months leading up to the second World War. Joan Collins stars as a cabaret singer who moonlights for British Intelligence; Peter Vaughn plays her German rival (rival spy, that is; not rival cabaret performer), Malcolm McDowell is no doubt someone shady, and George Hamilton is the American playboy novelist mixed up in the middle of it all. I have a secret soft spot for Eighties miniseries and an even more secret (and guilty) soft spot for the ageless Joan Collins, so I'm intrigued by this one. Retail for the 2-disc set is $39.99, but of course it can be pre-ordered for less on Amazon.

Monte Carlo isn't the only Joan Collins miniseries coming from Olive on June 21. That same day, the company will also put out another miniseries of the same vintage which might also interest spy fans. 1986's Sins, based on a Judith Gould novel, is not a spy story, but it does co-star Timothy Dalton (immediately pre-Bond) as Collins' unstable brother who's spent half his life in mental institutions. Lauren Hutton (who's also in Monte Carlo) and Gene Kelly (yes, Gene Kelly) also appear. Sins is also a 2-disc set with the same SRP.

Paul Gulacy Paints Modesty Blaise

Comic book artist Paul Gulacy, well known to spy fans for his work on James Bond: Serpent's Tooth, Black Widow, Master of Kung Fu, Sci-Spy and some particularly spyish Batman comics, has tried his hand at Modesty Blaise and kindly shared the result on his website.  Unfortunately, this does not indicate a new, Gulacy-illustrated Modesty comic. (How cool would that be?)  It's merely a commission piece, but it's always cool nonetheless to see new Gulacy spy art and new Modesty Blaise art!  For more of Gulacy's fantastic spy artwork, check out the great book Spies, Vixens and Masters of Kung Fu.

New, Vaguely Color-Coordinated Spy DVDs Out This Week

Spyder's Web

The most exciting new DVD release this week is a PAL Region 2 title from the UK's Network, out well ahead of its previously announced May 2 street date. I'm always eager to sample ITV spy shows I've never seen before, and that goes double when they're Avengers imitators from the late Sixties or early Seventies, as is the case with 1972's Spyder's Web! As with so many ITC shows of that vintage, TBC's Spyder's Web focuses on a top secret spy organization reporting directly to the highest levels of government who take on the assignments too hot or delicate or weird for the standard branches to handle. This secret organization, Web, uses a documentary unit called "Arachnid" as its cover. Some of the Avengers-like weirdness encountered by Web's top agents (Patricia Cutts, Anthony Ainley, Roger Lloyd-Pack and Veronica Carlson) includes a nursing home that can arrange almost anything, a romance tour company whose clients fall in love and then disappear, a mynah bird who relays orders to field agents (in an episode that also involves life-size puppets), a mad vicar waging a private war in the middle of Britain and a gadget that instantly ages humans to the point of skeletonizing them. Though the show was originally shot in color, only two episodes survive in that format; therefore the majority of the 13 episodes (that's the complete series) included on Network's 4-disc set exist only as black and white film recordings. Retail is £40.84 but the set is available now from Network's website for £35.74. I'm really looking forward to this one!

Sextette
Speaking of weirdness, that's really the only possible way to categorize the 1978 curiosity Sextette. Best known as Mae West's last film, Sextette is also one of Timothy Dalton's earliest spy roles, playing a British agent "even bigger than 007." ("I didn't get his measurements," replies West with an arched eyebrow.) That's actually intended as a surprise revelation, but it's also the critical bit for readers of this site... and this really isn't the sort of movie you can spoil. To call a spade a spade, it's an unwatchable mess... yet a compellingly watchable unwatchable mess for discerning viewers of a certain disposition.  (And if you can stomach it yourself, it's a great film to torture your friends with at a party—provided everyone's suitably inebriated.) Sextette comes to us from Ken Hughes, one of the many directors of another famous unwatchable mess that will be familiar to readers of this site, the 1967 spoof extravaganza Casino Royale. (In the interest of fairness, however, Hughes should also be credited with the wicked James Coburn spy movie The Internecine Project and episodes of the TV series Espionage, as well as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.)

Octogenarian West plays a serial matrimonist whose titular, all-star harem includes Tony Curtis, George Hamilton and Ringo Starr as well as Dalton. For good measure, Keith Moon, Alice Cooper and Regis Philbin also show up. And it's a musical. It really has to be seen to be believed, and now, thanks to Scorpion Releasing, you can. (Sextette was previously available on Rhino, but that version has long been out of print.  Now I kind of wish I'd taken advantage of that duration to unload my Rhino copy when they were commanding prices  $60-$100!) New extras on the remastered Scorpion version include a long interview with West's vocal coach and the original theatrical trailer. Retail is $19.95, but Amazon's got it for $13.49.

Caine and Lazenby

Michael Caine is famously friends with both Sean Connery and Roger Moore, and there are many pictures out there of Harry Palmer with one or the other of those Bonds.  He's even made movies with each of them (though The Man Who Would Be King has a distinct edge over Bullseye!), and the three memorably teamed up together to present the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1989. (That's a pretty priceless TV moment, in fact; if you've never seen it, be sure to check it out.)  And of course Caine also made a great movie with Pierce Brosnan.  But one Bond I've never seen him with is George Lazenby, which is why I was excited to see this picture of the two together (both sporting scruffy beards) at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival at Quantum of Bond.  I really don't think I've ever seen this photo before, though I supposed it might have gotten lost in the shuffle amidst all the other wonderful images in Charles Helfenstein's exhaustive and fantastic book The Making of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. At any rate, if you're a fan of either actor (and I'm betting that encompasses pretty much anyone reading this blog), you'll probably get a kick out of this picture. Also be sure to visit Quantum of Bond where it was initially posted.  A big thanks to that site's Philippe Lombard, who turned up the image on Allposters.fr.

Tradecraft: R.I.P. CHAOS

I meant to review CHAOS after its pilot, but didn't have the opportunity, then missed the second episode.  I watched the third one this weekend and hoped to write about those three, but unfortunately fate interjected and the first piece I'm writing about CBS's latest spy comedy since it started airing is a news item... and a bad one for the show's fans, I'm afraid.  Deadline reports that the network has pulled CHAOS from its Friday night schedule because its low ratings were dragging the whole night down.  The show's removal from the current schedule doesn't spell an out and out cancellation just yet... but it certainly doesn't bode well.  Presumably CBS will at least burn off the remaining episodes that were already filmed during the summer or something.  In the meantime, it seems pretty likely that if I ever do get around to writing a full review of CHAOS, it will be a post-mortem.  Overall, I kind of liked what little we got to see of it.  Some outlets have referred to it as a dramady, but that's inaccurate.  CHAOS was a flat-out spy comedy (which just happened to run an hour, evidently confusing some people), as signified by its Get Smart-derived title.  Unfortunately, it was a pretty toothless comedy, not in the league of Maxwell Smart or Sterling Archer.  Still, there were a good amount of laughs in the pilot, and the cast was likable.  It's too bad it probably won't have a chance to grow.  (Especially given the lengths to which CBS went to initially acquire it.)

Upcoming Spy DVDs: The Fall of Sam Axe

Judging from a Deadline story about Burn Notice creator Matt Nix signing a new (and very lucrative) overall deal with Fox TV Studios, Fox has announced the DVD of last night's Burn Notice spinoff telefilm amidst a press release about the deal.  According to the trade blog, Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe will hit DVD on July 26. As previously reported, Burn Notice: Season 4 comes out June 7.  Since this is just a mention in another press release, there is no word yet on extras or Blu-ray prospects. But I'm hopeful that, since they're releasing this one on its own as opposed to lumping it in with the eventual Season 5 DVDs, that we'll get a healthy assortment of bonus material.  It would make sense given Bruce Cambell's DVD-hungry fanbase.  (I don't think any title has ever had as many different DVD releases as Campbell's Sam Raimi collaborations The Evil Dead or Army of Darkness!)  Personally, I've got my fingers crossed for a commentary with Campbell and director Jeffrey Donovan at the very least.  I loved the telefilm, by the way, and would love to see more of these prequels about either Sam or Michael prior to their Burn Notice adventures.  If you can't wait until late July, The Fall of Sam Axe is currently available to view on Amazon Instant Video and Instant Video HD.