Shout! Factory's Next MST3K Set to Include Agent For H.A.R.M.

According to Shout! Factory's website, Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXIII will include the 1966 poverty row spy flick Agent for H.A.R.M., starring Peter Mark Richman (a frequent guest star on Sixties spy series like Mission: Impossible and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) as sweater-fancying not-so-special agent Adam Chance and Barbara Bouchet (Casino Royale) as the requisite professor's daughter. Agent for H.A.R.M. was reportedly a failed TV pilot (an attempted U.N.C.L.E. rip-off) turned into a sort of "American Eurospy" movie and released to drive-ins. Unlike Mario Bava's brilliant Danger: Diabolik (review here), which I will probably never forgive MST3K for riffing, Agent for H.A.R.M. definitely deserves this treatment. In fact, there's a good argument that Mike and the 'Bots (it was a 9th season episode) make it far more watchable. Which is just as well, since it's never been officially released on DVD on its own, making this MST3K set will be the only way, for now, to see it easily at home. (Weirdly, it does sometimes turn up on Time Warner's On Demand movie listings, though.) Among the special features (including the hilarious Mystery Science Theater Hour host wraps) is the new interview "Peter Mark Richman: In H.A.R.M.'s Way," presumably featuring the actor discussing Agent for H.A.R.M. (Perhaps he'll confirm that it was indeed shot as a TV pilot.) I think I'm probably safe in supposing that this is the only documentary material that's ever been devoted to this particular title. The DVD set also includes original theatrical trailers for all the films skewered, and the usual exclusive mini-posters by artist Steve Vance. (I look forward to seeing Vance's H.A.R.M. artwork.) This is a pretty great set overall; besides Agent for H.A.R.M., it also includes the classic episodes Daddy-O and Earth Vs. The Spider, as well as Teen-Age Crime Wave.

While Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXXIII is available at a substantial discount from Amazon, if you order directly from the Shout! Factory website, then you'll get your discs two weeks earlier than everyone else and you'll also receive an exclusive set of MST3K coasters.

Read my review of Agent For H.A.R.M. here.

And, if you're so inclined, also check out my reviews for similar "American Eurospy" poverty row spy flicks like A Man Called Dagger and Dimension 5.

Tradecraft: Charlize Theron to Star in The Coldest City, Based on Antony Johnston's Graphic Novel

Well, this is cool! Deadline reports that Focus Features has bought the North American rights to a film version of Antony Johnston's Cold War Berlin-set graphic novel The Coldest City (review here), and "has committed to a wide release." The graphic novel (and I hope the movie as well) is set in the final days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Personally, I feel like divided Berlin was just as interesting in the 1980s as the 1960s, but we get far too few period pieces taking advantage of that fascinating time, so I'm particularly looking forward to this one! Charlize Theron will star as British agent Lorainne Broughton, who's got a ticking clock to solve the murder of a fellow agent and recover some vital intelligence before the climate in Berlin thaws forever. John Wick's David Leitch and Chad Stahelski will direct, and Kurt Johnstad (300) will pen the script. That behind-the-scenes team would seem to bode a more action-oriented tale than the refreshingly cerebral story of Johnston's graphic novel (more in the Len Deighton tradition than Ian Fleming), but it's a talented group of people, so I'll give them credit for more than just what we've seen them do before. Johnstad really impressed me with Act of Valor. In that movie, he managed to assemble a serviceable spy plot out of what basically amounted to footage of Special Forces teams training, so just imagine what he'll be able to do with source material of this caliber! Johnston is a longtime spy fan whose other comic book credits in the genre also include an arc of Greg Rucka's stellar Queen & Country and adaptations of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider graphic novels.

Tradecraft: Agent Carter Renewed for Second Season; S.H.I.E.L.D. Spinoff Not Going Forward

Good news all around for fans of ABC's Marvel Universe spy series! Most importantly, according to Deadline, the network has renewed the terrific Agent Carter, starring Hayley Atwell, for a second season. They've also renewed Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for Season 3. Who knows? If it continues to improve exponentially the way it did from its first to second season, it might earn itself a positive adjective one day as well. And one sign of improvement is the fact that the network has, the trade reports in a separate article, decided not to proceed with the mooted spinoff we heard about a few weeks ago. The proposed series would have neutered the mothership series by spinning off its two best new characters onto a show of their own... and leaving Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with only its far less interesting original cast members. Since there won't be a new spinoff series, Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood will remain on the original show, now as regulars. Perhaps in another season or two it might make sense to spin them off into a second series, but to do so now would have been premature. It's possible that the ideas for the spinoff concocted by Agents executive producers Jeffrey Bell and Paul Zbyszewski could end up incorporated into storylines on the flagship series next year.

Agent Carter, which ran as a limited, 8-episode series to bridge the fall and spring halves of the season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., is set in the same universe nearly seven decades earlier. The period spy show follows Captain America's wartime girlfriend, Agent Peggy Carter (Atwell), in the early days of the Cold War. In its first season it delivered everything fans could hope for from a period spy series with over-the-top, comic book elements. The blend of history and mild science fiction was perfect, and Atwell made a more compelling lead than any of the contemporary TV Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. While the first season ended in a conclusive enough manner that it could have wrapped things up altogether, I am thrilled that we'll be getting more Carter next winter! (Once again, it's expected to serve as a bridge while Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. goes on its winter hiatus.) Before that happens, Atwell will next be seen in the role of Peggy Carter in this summer's Ant-Man.

Tradecraft: Kevin James Mistaken for an International Assassin

I think the headline really says everything. I'm not sure you're even reading beyond that. I'm really not sure why I'm writing beyond that! But there is a little more to the story, and some hints that maybe, just maybe, this project might be something better than Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. Maybe. (But probably not.) Deadline reports that America's favorite fat man Kevin James will star in The True Memoirs of an International Assassin. Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2, Never Back Down) will direct. But remember that part where I just said that there are some signs that it might actually be better than the Blart stuff? Well, here's why. According to the trade, the script for this project by Jeff Morris was actually on Hollywood's prestigious Black List! And it sounds kind of like a riff on the 1973 Jean-Paul Belmondo spy classic Le Magnifique. "James [plays] a mild-mannered accountant and would-be author who gets mistaken for a killer-for-hire when his fictional novel about an international assassin is published as a true story. He heads to Belize to escape his sudden celebrity, but gets entangled in an assassination plot. Thrown into a world of real danger, he must find a way to channel his lead character Colt Rodgers and save the day." Congratulations! Now you've read your Kevin James news for the day. Please proceed with the rest of it.

Tradecraft: Jon Hamm to Star in Tony Gilroy's Le Carré-esque High Wire Act

Tony Gilroy may have dropped the ball with The Bourne Legacy, but when he's on his game (Michael Clayton, Duplicity, the previous Bourne movies), he's one of the best screenwriters in the business. And for his newest effort, according to director Brad Anderson (Transsiberian, The Machinist), he's channeling his inner le Carré. "Tony may have been channeling John le Carré when he wrote this," he told Deadline, "and as such it has many of the themes I love that make those stories so great – the political intrigue, the betrayals, the morally compromised characters, the reluctant heroes. And it’s set in a world – war-torn Beirut – that’s seldom depicted on screen." The movie in question is High Wire Act. Anderson will direct for Radar Pictures, and Mad Men's Jon Hamm will star. According to the trade, the plot goes something like this: "Set in 1980s Beirut, Hamm plays a former U.S. diplomat who is called back into service to save a former colleague from the group possibly responsible for his own family’s death." Jon Hamm in a le Carré-esque Eighties-set political thriller directed by Brad Anderson and written by Tony Gilroy? I'm in!

New Spy DVDs: Warner Archive Releases Sol Madrid (1968)

Wow, the hits just keep coming from the Warner Archive Collection for spy fans! On top of last week's release of The Scorpio Letters and last month's Where the Spies Are, WAC today (finally!) released the long-awaited Sol Madrid (1968)! So apparently the recent TCM broadcasts were indeed a hint of things to come. Just as Robert Vaughn made The Venetian Affair (also available from WAC) to capitalize on his Man From U.N.C.L.E. stardom while at the same time broadening his horizons to grittier spy far, so his co-star McCallum made Sol Madrid (along with a bunch of U.N.C.L.E. guest stars!). Sol Madrid found McCallum starring as an agent tasked by Interpol to take down a drug kingpin (On Her Majesty's Secret Service's Telly Savalas, of "The Five Daughters Affair") hiding out in Acapulco. To accomplish the task, he goes undercover as a heroin smuggler and finds himself trapped with a beautiful woman (Stella Stevens, The Silencers) between Savalas's drug kingpin and the Mafia, in the person of Rip Torn ("The Alexander the Greater Affair"). Ricardo Montalban ("The Dove Affair"), Paul Lukas ("The Test Tube Killer Affair"), Michael Ansara ("The Arabian Affair") and Pat Hingle (The Ugly American) also star. Where Eagles Dare's Brian G. Hutton directed, and, as with The Venetian Affair, Lalo Schifrin provided the fantastic soundtrack. Sol Madrid is available as a made-on-demand (MOD) DVD from The Warner Archive Collection for $21.99, though it's currently on sale at a discount.

Jim Steranko's Nick Fury Birthday Card

©Steranko

Comic Art Fans has a Steranko Nick Fury illustration for sale that I've never seen before that's truly incredible. This piece was created as a birthday gift to Marvel editor and Fury co-creator Stan Lee in the early 1970s. I'm surprised this piece isn't better known. Though rough, I think it ranks up there with the iconic cover for Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4 in terms of definitive Fury images. Rarely have I seen the essence of superspydom boiled down so succinctly in a single image. I love it! A well-heeled spy fan can own the original for just $7,000.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has announced Blu-ray and DVD releases of Kingsman: The Secret Service on June 9 (following a digital release nearly a month earlier on May 15). According to The Digital Bits, extras on the Blu-ray will include the 6-part documentary Kingsman: The Secret Service Revealed ("Panel to Screen: The Education of a 21st Century Super-Spy," "Heroes and Rogues," "Style All His Own," "Tools of the Trade," "Breathtakingly Brutal," and "Culture Clash: The Comic Book Origins of the Secret Service") and galleries of behind-the-scenes images and photos of sets and props. Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman, about a delinquent teen (Taron Edgerton) recruited by a John Steed-like gentleman spy (Colin Firth) to follow in his footsteps and save the world in fashionable suits, proved the first big hit of a year filled with spy movies, grossing over $400 million worldwide and reportedly spawning a sequel. Read my review of Kingsman: The Secret Service here.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week From Warner Archive: The Scorpio Letters and Escape From East Berlin

The Warner Archive Collection have been dipping into their spy catalog again recently, and that makes me very happy! Following last month's long awaited made-on-demand release of the elusive David Niven Eurospy title Where the Spies Are, WAC has released two more rare Sixties Cold War movies this week. The Scorpio Letters stars Alex Cord (Airwolf, The Etruscan Kills Again), Laurence Naismith (The Persuaders!, Diamonds Are Forever) and Goldfinger's Golden Girl Shirley Eaton. The 1967 ABC TV movie is a real rarity. To be honest, I hardly know anything about it, so I'll let WAC's description do the talking:

Who is Scorpio and what's his connection to the suicide of a British spy? These are the questions Joe Christopher (Alex Cord, TV 's Airwolf) has been hired to answer. Working for one of England's Intelligence Services, the American ex-cop discovers Scorpio is an extortionist who pressured the agent into taking his life. Teamed with rival operative Phoebe Stewart (Shirley Eaton, Goldfinger), Christopher sets out to smash Scorpio's operation, unaware that the blackmailer knows of their plans and intends to strike the fatal blow first. Based on the novel by Victor Canning, The Scorpio Letters was directed by M-G-M veteran Richard Thorpe (Ivanhoe) and scored by ... Dave Grusin [The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.] in his feature film debut.

Escape from East Berlin (1962) isn't actually about spies per se, but it is about escaping from East Berlin at the height of that Cold War, and that's still very much a subject of interest to this spy fan. Shot in cinema verite style by noir master Robert Siodmak (The Killers, Criss Cross) and based on true events, Escape From East Berlin is a gripping drama of a divided city. I was lucky enough to see it at LACMA several years ago on a double bill with Funeral in Berlin, and I've been hoping for a DVD release ever since. Here's WAC's description:

When his friend Gunther Jurgena attempts to break out of East Germany by crashing his truck through the Berlin Wall, Kurt Schröder (Don Murray) watches in horror as he is shot dead by the border guards. So when Gunther's sister Erika (Christine Kaufmann) follows her brother and barely escapes the same fate, Kurt offers to help. Aided by 26 family members and neighbors who also wish to defect, Kurt tunnels under the Wall, unaware that Erika's parents have betrayed them and that armed troops are about to move in. Based on an actual mass breakout attempt that occurred in January 1962, Escape from East Berlin is a masterful tale of thrills and suspense.

Both MOD titles are available directly from the Warner Archive Collection (The Scorpio Letters, Escape From East Berlin), or from Amazon (The Scorpio Letters, Escape from East Berlin). Retail is $21.99, but both vendors offer discounts.

New Spy DVDs: Double Crossed: 10 Classic Spy Thrillers

Mill Creek is famous for their budget collections of ten, twenty-five, fifty, even 100 classic (read: public domain) movies in a single set. They're usually grouped by genre, like 50 War Classics or 50 Great Mysteries or something along those lines, and I've long wished they'd do a set of spy movies. Because obviously there are plenty of great spy movies in the public domain! What's more, Mill Creek now distributes a lot of titles from the MGM catalog, so that opens up their options. And, sure enough, they've finally gotten around to the espionage genre. Granted, on the lower end of the quantity spectrum, and focusing solely on WWII espionage movies. But still, their set Double Crossed - 10 Classic Spy Thrillers seems like a pretty great bargain for just over $10! (And under from some retailers.) While the odds are good many spy fans will already own a few of these (the Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Moto movies, for example, have long been available in boxed sets of their respective heroes), the set is probably still worth its low cost for the others. Included are "classics" (both legitimate and otherwise) starring the likes of James Cagney, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, and Peter O'Toole. Below is a list of he movies spread across these three discs, including the distributor's descriptions.

Mr. Moto's Last Warning
Mr. Moto investigates a plot involving the French and British governments that could start a war over the Suez Canal. In a race against time and assassins on his tail, he must expose the agents before it's too late.
Starring Peter Lorre, John Carradine
(1939) Black and White 71 Min NR

British Intelligence
During the beginning of World War II, a German woman comes to stay in the home of a high-ranking British official. The family does not know their visitor is really a German spy who is meeting up with another agent already in the house trying to steal documents.
Starring Boris Karloff, Margaret Lindsay
(1940) Black and White 61 Min NR (Violence)

The Black Dragons
A famous plastic surgeon is hired by Japan's Black Dragon Society to transform six operatives into exact duplicates of six power American executives to sabotage the U.S. war effort. Will agents from the F.B.I. be able to unravel the plot?
Starring Bela Lugosi, Clayton Moore
(1942) Black and White 62 Min NR

Submarine Alert
In a devious plot, the FBI unexpectedly fires a loyal radio engineer who is recruited by the Nazis. But is he actually bait to trap their spy ring of saboteurs?
Starring Richard Arlen, Wendy Barrie
(1943) Black and White 67 Min NR (Violence)

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon
Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) are searching for a kidnapped scientist whose invention may decide the fate of World War II. Both the Allies and the Nazis are in a desperate race to possess it for their own benefit.
Starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce
(1943) Black and White 68 Min NR

The Adventures of Tartu
A British soldier is recruited for an undercover assignment inside Nazi-controlled Czechoslovakia. His must infiltrate a chemical factory and work with the local underground resistance to sabotage the operation.
Starring Robert Donat, Valerie Hobson
(1943) Black and White 104 Min NR (Violence)

Blood on the Sun
This Oscar-winning film begins prior to the outbreak of World War II. Nick Condon (James Cagney), the American editor of a Tokyo newspaper, discovers plans for Japan's military conquest of the world. He vows to secure the document and get it into the hands of the American military at any cost.
Starring James Cagney, Sylvia Sidney
(1945) Black and White 94 Min NR (Violence)

The Green Glove
Glenn Ford stars as an American GI who travels back to France after the end of World War II, to try and recover a jewel-encrusted glove, which had been pillaged from a country church during hostilities.
Starring Glenn Ford, Geraldine Brooks
(1952) Black and White 89 Min NR

The Limping Man
An American WW II veteran returns to England to visit an old flame he met during the war. When he arrives at the airport, a fellow passenger, with ties to the woman, is gunned down.
Starring Lloyd Bridges, Moira Lister
(1953) Black and White 76 Min NR

Rogue Male
An English aristocrat attempts to assassinate Adolph Hitler but is captured by the Nazis and horribly tortured. After enduring the suffering, he escapes and returns to England, but he is trailed by Nazi agents bent upon preventing him from revealing Hitler s true plans.
Starring Peter O'Toole, Alastair Sim
(1976) Color 103 Min NR

The latter, the most recent movie in the collection by a good twenty years (though still in keeping with the WWII theme), is a remake of Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (review here), based on the novel by Geoffrey Household.

Tradecraft: Amy Ryan to Chase Down The Rock in Central Intelligence

She might not be in the Michael Caine zone yet, but Amy Ryan continues to steadily boost the number of spy credits on her resume. Following roles in Paul Greengrass's Green Zone (review here) and Steven Spielberg's forthcoming Bridge of Spies, Ryan has joined the cast of the Rawson Marshall Thurber action comedy Central Intelligence, Deadline reports, in which it sounds like she'll play a variation on the Joan Allen character from the Bourne movies. Central Intelligence, for those who can't keep straight all the spy comedies currently in the pipeline, is the buddy picture pairing Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Kevin Hart. Hart plays a former high school jock now living a humdrum life as an accountant, and Johnson plays a former high school wimp who has grown up to become, well, The Rock... and works as an assassin for the CIA. The CIA agent, who I'm guessing from the description of Ryan's character must have pulled a Bourne and be on the run from his own people, enlists his old classmate at a high school reunion to help thwart a dastardly spy plot. According to the trade, "Ryan will play the CIA operative who is chasing Johnson’s character." Danielle Nicolet (The Starter Wife) recently joined the cast as well, playing Hart’s childhood sweetheart turned wife. Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen penned the script.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Chessgame: The Complete Series

This summer, Network will release a Region 2 DVD set of the 1983 UK spy series Chessgame, starring Terence Stamp. This will mark the series' first ever DVD release in its original episodic format. Chessgame was adapted from Anthony Price's excellent series of novels about the intellectual spymaster David Audley and his rotating roster of assistants. Though he doesn't quite match the author's physical description of his hero, Stamp (Modesty Blaise) plays Audley. Robin Sachs (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) co-stars as Hugh Roskill; Michael Culver (Philby, Burgess and Maclean) plays Nick Hannah (an amalgamation of several Price characters including Col. Butler), and Carmen du Sautoy (The Man With the Golden Gun) plays Audley's love interest Faith, whose role is beefed up from the books. The six hour-long episodes cover the first three novels, The Labyrinth Makers, The Alamut Ambush (a truly terrific spy novel) and Colonel Butler's Wolf. They were subsequently re-edited into a trilogy of feature films for television syndication in the U.S., and are available that way on budget Region 1 and Region 0 DVDs of limited quality re-titled (respectively) Cold War Killers, The Alamut Ambush and The Deadly Recruits. Not only does this forthcoming Network release guarantee a level of quality not found on those discs, but it certainly offers a much more attractive package as well! And I'm looking forward to seeing the show in its proper episodic format, with its original opening title sequence. Price wasn't satisfied with these adaptations (and fans of the books will understand why), but they're still quality Eighties spy television. The 2-disc set is due out July 20, and will retail for £12.24. It's available through Network's website or on Amazon.co.uk.

Now if only BBC would release their trio of  Michael Denison/Lucy Fleming miniseries, Blood Money, Skorpion and Cold Warriors, we'd finally be pretty well appointed for serious Eighties UK spy series on DVD... (We've already got Smiley's People from BBC, Mr. Palfrey of Westminster from Network and Acorn, Harry's Game from Network, and Glory Boys and The Contract from Acorn.)

Tradecraft: J.K. Simmons to Star in New Starz Metaphysical Spy Series

Deadline reports that Whiplash Oscar winner J.K. Simmons (Burn After Reading) will topline what the trade describes as a new metaphysical espionage series on Starz. Simmons will star in Counterpart, which has a straight to series order from the cable network. Created by hot screenwriter Justin Marks (Top Gun 2), the first two episodes will be directed by The Imigation Game's Morten Tyldum. Per Deadline: "Described as an espionage thriller with a metaphysical twist, Counterpart tells the story of Howard Silk (Simmons), a lowly cog in a bureaucratic UN agency who is turning the last corner of a life filled with regret, when he discovers the agency he works for is guarding a secret: a crossing to a parallel dimension. Through Howard and his “Counterpart” on the other side, Prime, the show will navigate themes of identity, idealism, what ifs, and lost love."

UK Release Date, Poster for Brosnan's Survivor

DIY reports that the Pierce Brosnan/Milla Jovovich espionage thriller Survivor will open in the UK on June 5. The site also debuted the UK quad poster, which has the U.S. 1-sheet beat. The movie, directed by James McTeigue, is slated for a multi-platform release in America on May 29. Brosnan plays the baddie. Robert Forster (Jackie Brown), Angela Bassett (Alias), James D'Arcy (Agent Carter), Roger Rees (If Looks Could Kill) and Dylan McDermott (Olympus Has Fallen) co-star.

Watch the trailer here.

The Sequelizer: Sony Confirms Denzel Washington Equalizer Sequel

We've known for a long time that a sequel to last year's feature film version of The Equalizer was in the works and that Sony hoped it would be star Denzel Washington's first ever sequel, but now it's official. Variety reports that Sony confirmed a follow-up to the R-rated action movie, which grossed $192 million globally. According to the trade, "Washington is expected to reprise his role as vigilante Robert McCall in Equalizer 2." The role of McCall, the former spy who decides to atone for his past sins by helping those with the odds against them, was of course originated in the 1985-89 TV series by Edward Woodward (Callan). While Sony announced the sequel at this week's Cinemacon, little else is known at this time, including a release date, additional cast involvement, or whether Antoine Fuqua will return to direct. Personally, I hope he does! I thought he pulled off one of the better TV-to-film remakes, and made a damn good adult action movie in the process. I'd like to see this series continue, as the first film basically served as an origin story bringing this McCall to the doorstep of the TV version. Maybe they can get him a Jag next time around! While fans wait for the next movie to materialize, they can check out last year's surprisingly thick Equalizer novel novel by series co-creator Michael Sloan.

Barely Lethal Trailer

The trailer has dropped for the brilliantly titled Barely Lethal, starring Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) as a teen spy trying to fit in at a ordinary American high school. An orphan raised in Samuel L. Jackson's assassin school, Steinfeld's character fakes her own death to leave her secret spy agency and attempt to enjoy a normal teenage life. Her plans are thwarted, however, when her old life catches up with her in the form of enemy agent Jessica Alba (Spy Kids: All the Time in the World) and rival spy Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones). Fanboys' Kyle Newman directs. I'm a sucker for the teen spy subgenre, and this looks like fun to me. While we've seen plenty of movies about ordinary kids becoming spies (If Looks Could Kill, Kingsman, Alex Rider), I can't recall one about a trained teen spy trying to become an ordinary kid before. Barely Lethal premieres April 30 on DirecTV, then opens in limited theatrical release and comes to VOD May 29.

Tradecraft: ABC Eyes Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spinoff

When it was rumored a few weeks ago that ABC is considering a spin-off series from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I naturally assumed that the spinoff would be about Skye and her new Inhuman pals, as that plot has been building all season. Which would be awesome, because then I could continue to watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. without having to watch Skye and her new Inhuman pals! But now According to The Hollywood Reporter, the potential spinoff will focus on S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Mockingbird (Adrianne Palicki) and Lance Hunter (Nick Blood). I guess this makes sense, since Palicki and Blood have been largely responsible for the vast improvement in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this season. (It's still never lived up to the promise of that final shot in the pilot, but it has improved.) But it's also a pretty terrible idea, because then the mothership show will lose its best assets, and viewers will be left with the original Season 1 crew of lackluster "agents." But I guess I shouldn't be complaining. It would mean we'll have one more spy show on television, and that's always a good thing. In the Marvel comics, Barbara "Bobbi" Morse, codename Mockingbird, is a superspy, a former Avenger (Marvel Avenger, that is, not the Avengers-Avenger) and ex-wife of Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner in Marvel's Avengers movies). On the TV show, she's a superspy, but there's been no mention of an Avengers connection. Her ex isn't Hawkeye, but S.H.I.E.L.D. contractor Lance Hunter. In the comics Lance Hunter is a John Steed sort of British agent (the English answer to Nick Fury, and head of  UK S.H.I.E.L.D. equivalent S.T.R.I.K.E.) who likes suits and bowler hats; on the show he's a rough and tumble mercenary. According to Deadline's story on the subject, the potential show would have a "Mr. and Mrs. Smith vibe." I have to admit, a show about formerly married on-and-off lovers who are spies could be good.

According to the trade, the pilot for the potential spinoff will be written by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. executive producer Jeffrey Bell (Alias, Angel) and series writer Paul Zbyszewski (Hawaii Five-0, After the Sunset). Deadline reports that Zbyszewski would be the showrunner should the spinoff go to series. ABC is also considering a secret Marvel superhero project from John Ridley (American Crime, Undercover Brother). Chances are they will only go with one of the new Marvel series if any. While Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. looks good for renewal, Marvel's far superior period espionage show, Agent Carter, is on the bubble as to whether it will come back or not. We should know which Marvel spy shows make the cut come ABC's upfront presentation in May.

Trailer for HBO's The Brink

To lighten things up a bit from this week's stories about torture tactics and other CIA debacles, here's the trailer for HBO's new comedy series The Brink... about, uh, a CIA debacle in the making. There's more than just espionage here, but the Intelligence Community doesn't escape the satirical scrutiny of this dark satire about the world pushed to the brink of WWIII. Roberto Benabib (Weeds) and Kim Benabib created the show, which is executive produced by Jerry Weintraub (The Avengers), Jay Roach (Austin Powers) and produced by stars Jack Black and Tim Robbins.

The Brink Tease: Night Version

Massive New S.H.I.E.L.D. Omnibus Collects All the Classic Sixties Nick Fury Comics

The complete run of the classic Sixties spy comic Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be collected in one massive hardcover tome due out from Marvel this fall. Though in keeping with current branding, it won't actually be released under its original title, but just "S.H.I.E.L.D.," dropping the Nick Fury. This is obviously in part to tie in with Marvel's current TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which doesn't feature the one-eyed superspy, and in part because Fury himself has largely been written out of the Marvel Universe at the moment. (The Nick Fury featured in these stories has been banished to the moon, believe it or not.) The name change is regrettable, but it's still nice that these classic and essential comics will all be collected together.

Historically, S.H.I.E.L.D. collections have focused on Jim Steranko's undeniably definitive run on the title. That's as it should be, since those Steranko comics are essential reading for any fan of the character or the medium at large, but by focusing on Steranko alone they leave out a lot of good stories by other writers and artists. This Omnibus will be the first time that the entire run of original stories from Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been collected in one place, not just the three issues that Steranko drew. (Most of Steranko's contributions to the character came earlier in the anthology book Strange Tales, though that run began in the hands of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Even the Kirby material is often left out of Nick Fury collections.) This 960-page tome, S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Complete Collection, collects the Fury material from Strange Tales issues 135-168, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1-15, Fantastic Four #21, Tales of Suspense #78, Avengers #72, Marvel Spotlight #31 (featuring a story drawn by Howard Chaykin that explains why WWII vet Fury didn't seem to be aging much by the 1970s), and relevant material from Marvel's self-parody 'zine Not Brand Echh #3, 8 and 11. As far as I can tell, that means the only content not already collected in three volumes' worth of Marvel Masterworks (out of print high end, hardcover collections) is Tales of Suspense #78, a Jack Kirby-drawn story which sees Fury teamed with Captain America to defeat "the macabre menace of THEM." So if you've got the three volumes of Marvel Masterworks: Nick Fury, you might not need this collection. Then again you might, as it is the first time all of this material has been collected in a single volume. The only glaring omission that I can spot is Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos Annual #3, which saw the eye-patched Fury (the patch distinguished the contemporary version of the character from his WWII self, star of a long-running series) and his WWII unit reconvened by President Johnson for a special mission in Vietnam. That one didn't make any previous S.H.I.E.L.D. collections either.

The Steranko stories are all conveniently collected in a much cheaper, much easier to hold trade paperback called S.H.I.E.L.D. by Steranko: The Complete Collection. That might be the best place for beginners to turn, eager for their first exposure to Steranko's groundbreaking artwork or Nick Fury's spy adventures. And Fury's whole Sixties run is collected in those three very nice, very readable Marvel Masterworks hardcovers, though those are out of print. But S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Complete Collection Omnibus brings everything together in one convenient place. So if you think you're apt to get hook, this might be a good starting place after all. It will certainly save time in hunting down all of these issues individually! And the Sixties S.H.I.E.L.D. oeuvre is as essential a part of any good spy collection as Ian Fleming paperbacks or The Man From U.N.C.L.E. DVDs.

Marvel will also release a trade paperback this fall collecting the first six issues of their current S.H.I.E.L.D. comic, based loosely on the TV series. (It's surprisingly good!) And the final trade paperback volume of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Classic, collecting the comic's early Nineties run, is due out in June. Between them (and especially when combined with Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D., Wolverine & Nick Fury: Scorpio and Garth Ennis's Fury MAX: My War Gone By), Nick Fury's Marvel legacy is now pretty well covered in trade!

Retail on this behemoth is $99.99, but it's considerably less on Amazon. It will be available with a Steranko cover or a new Alex Ross cover.

Tradecraft: Three Rival Benghazi Movies in the Pipeline

There are at least three rival projects in the works chronicling the harrowing and deadly September 2012 siege on the U.S. diplomatic compound and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, diplomat Sean Smith, and two CIA contractors lost their lives. The latest, according to Deadline, comes from Alcon Entertainment. Zero Footprint tells not the story of the siege itself, but a more macro tale of events leading up to it. "This about why it happened and the siege of the embassy is the last part of the third act," says Alcon co-founder and co-CEO Andrew Kosove. "This is about everything that led up to that attack." Scott Charnick (The Wake), Charley Parlapanides (Immortals) and Vlas Parlapanides (Immortals) penned the script in close consultation with an ex-Special Forces operator who must remain anonymous. The complex story of deniable operators, secret missions, and shifting allegiances in the ongoing war on terror is told from his perspective.

If Alcon's approach is comparable to Syrianna or Zero Dark Thirty, the other two sound more akin to Black Hawk Down, focusing on the siege itself. Another project (currently untitled), Deadline reported separately, will focus on the two fallen CIA contractors and comes from Relativity Media, who have optioned "the life rights of former U.S. Navy SEALs-turned CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who rescued thirty Americans in the attacks on the U.S. Diplomatic Compound." The studio also acquired the life rights to Woods’ wife Dorothy Woods and Doherty’s best friend and estate executor, Sean Lake, and will work closely with them in developing the film. Matthew Sand (Ninja Assassin) is writing the screenplay for the untitled drama, and Dana Brunetti (Captain Phillips) will produce.

Michael Bay is ahead of them, though, with his own Benghazi drama at Paramount, 13 Hours, already shooting in Malta and Morocco. Bay's version, scripted by Chuck Hogan (The Town), is based on Mitchell Zuckoff's book Thirteen Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi. In a story earlier this year, Deadline reported that James Badge Dale (Rubicon) "will play the leader of the security team that tries to protect U.S. lives in the assault." Freddie Stroma (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) plays an undercover CIA agent in Libya, and John Krasinski (Aloha) and Max Martini (Captain Phillips) also star.

Tradecraft: BBC Cold War Spy Drama Close to the Enemy Sets Cast

Deadline reports that BBC2 has announced the cast of a new Cold War espionage drama from playwright Stephen Poliakoff ("Soft Targets," Dancing On the Edge). The six-episode drama Close to the Enemy takes place in the earliest days of the Cold War and immediate aftermath of WWII, a new popular period for exploration on TV following the likes of Agent Carter and the last two seasons of Foyle's War. According to the trade, Jim Sturgess (Cloud Atlas) stars as Callum, an intelligence officer charged with ensuring that a captured German scientist, played by August Diehl (Inglorious Basterds), brings his jet engine know-how to the RAF and not the Russians. The drama unfolds against the backdrop of a bomb-damaged London hotel, whose other occupants include Freddie Highmore (Bates Motel), Charlotte Riley (London Has Fallen), Alfie Allen (John Wick), Charity Wakefield (Any Human Heart), Angela Bassett (Survivor) and Alfred Molina (Matador). Producer and frequent Poliakoff collaborator Helen Flint told the trade, "Close To The Enemy is set in the transitional period of 1946 — the brutal Second World War is finally over but the destruction of families and cities permeates everyone’s lives. As the Cold War takes its hold in Europe and the public realization that the atom bomb could be used by any government, our hero Callum passionately believes that to safeguard the future you mustn’t heed the past regardless of how terrible it has been." Hopefully PBS or BBC America will pick this up for U.S. broadcast.

HBO Explores CIA's Psychological Torture Tactics

After a brief period where fact-inspired spy dramas like Argo and Zero Dark Thirty portrayed some of the CIA's wins, we seem to be returning to the ever popular exploration of the Agency's disastrous missteps. While the Jeremy Renner drama Kill the Messenger sank quickly last fall (despite an exciting and truly harrowing first half reminiscent of All the President's Men), there are currently two Iran-Contra scandal movies in the works, two Edward Snowden movies, two three(!) Benghazi movies, and now two TV project's about CIA psychological torture techniques. We've already heard about ABC's MK Ultra miniseries from the writer of The Assets, which will examine the Agency's Scientific Intelligence Division's notorious 1960s experiments in human "behavioral engineering" using methods including sensory deprivation, hypnosis, torture and, most famously, LSD. But that kind of "enhanced interrogation" techniques are old hat now. To the U.S. government's unending embarrassment, Langley has continued to push the boundaries in that field. Deadline reports that HBO Films will examine today's brutal torture techniques used in the war on terror and popularized (if that's the word) late last year by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's so-called "torture report." According to the trade, Scott Z. Burns (whose many spy script credits include The Bourne Ultimatum, The Informant! and Steven Soderbergh's unfilmed version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) will write and direct Rorschach and Awe, based on the 2007 Vanity Fair article of the same name by Katherine Eban. Per Deadline, "Rorschach and Awe will explore how the CIA hired two psychologists to build a torture program with the full knowledge and cooperation of the American Psychological Association. In her article, Eban shed light on the roles of psychologists James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen as architects of the coercive interrogation tactics. For their services, the duo were rewarded with $180 million in CIA contracts, $81 million of which had been paid before the agreement was terminated in 2009."

Tradecraft: Transporter Refueled Delayed Until Fall

EuropaCorp's neo-Eurospy series reboot The Transporter Refueled is going to spend a little bit more time at the gas station before reaching its destination in theaters. Deadline reports that Luc Besson's distribution company has decided to move the film out of its original, busy mid-June frame (where it would have been competing with Jurassic World, Pixar's Inside Out, and the original Transporter himself, Jason Statham, in Spy) to September 4, where it will go up directly against the Pierce Brosnan action movie No Escape, which opens the preceding Wednesday. Historically, fall has been the traditional time frame for Transporter releases. The Transporter Refueled stars relative newcomer Ed Skrein in the role originated by Statham and played on TV by Chris Vance. Watch the trailer here.

Tradecraft: Clooney Acquires Cold War Spy Story Three Minutes to Doomsday

Variety reports that George Clooney and Grant Heslov's Smokehouse Pictures has acquired the film rights to a forthcoming non-fiction book by Joe Navarro and Howard Means called Three Minutes to Doomsday. According to the trade, "the book follows the FBI’s leading body language expert Navarro, who was sent to track down Rod Ramsey to report on his knowledge or association with Clyde Lee Conrad, an U.S. Army officer who sold top-secret classified information to the People’s Republic of Hungary. It documents Navarro and Ramsey’s relationship and interviews against the backdrop of the Cold War." I find that description a little frustrating because it neither tells who Ramsey was nor when during the Cold War all this went down. So for some more background, according to SpyMuseum.com (a very cool online resource on espionage history), Conrad was an NCO stationed in West Germany and "tasked with maintaining and protecting top secret documents related to the military plans in case of a war with the Soviet bloc." In 1975 he was recruited by Zoltan Szabo, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Hungary and Sergeant in the U.S. Army who was really a Colonel in the Hungarian Military intelligence, to pass along the documents he was charged with protecting. Over a ten year period, he passed along more than 30,000 documents, among them NATO strategies, troop positions and nuclear weapon sites. In 1983, he recruited his then assistant, Sgt. Roderick Ramsey, to assist him in his treason as well as his army work. A CIA asset tipped off the Americans that they had a leak, and Conrad was finally arrested in 1988 and convicted in 1990. So presumably Navarro's investigation happened during the mid-Eighties.

According to Navarro's website, he was recruited by the FBI at the tender age of 23 as one of their youngest agents ever (this would be 1976 or '77), and "spent the next 25 years at the FBI, working both as an agent and supervisor in the areas of counterintelligence and counterterrorism. Through his work he was able to study, refine and apply the science of non-verbal communications. His acumen in this field, and his success as a spy-catcher, led Joe to begin training FBI agents and the intelligence community." He retired in 2003.

Means previously collaborated with former CIA agent Robert Baer on the books See No Evil and Sleeping with the Devil, which served as the basis for the Clooney movie Syriana. Scribner recently acquired U.S. publication rights for Three Minutes to Doomsday.

Bond Producers, Oliver Stone Behind Rival Edward Snowden Movies

Last year's powerful, Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour chronicled the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the ramifications of his revelations about domestic spying in the United States. It's a fascinating film, and together with the Frontline report "United States of Secrets" actually managed to change my opinion of Snowden. But audiences don't turn out in droves for documentaries, so most moviegoers will have to wait for the feature version to form an opinion. Make that feature versions. There are two rival Snowden movies in various states of production/development, and one of them comes from the most famous producing team in all of spydom.

It's extremely rare that James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson tackle anything other than 007. (Broccoli produced the HBO movie Crime of the Century back in 1996, and the pair were attached to produce the spy movie Remote Control back in 2009, but that project never materialized.) But last year Deadline reported that they're doing just that, and in stark contrast with the fantasy spy world of James Bond, they're planning to tell one of the most famous real-life espionage stories of our age. According to the trade, Sony acquired Glenn Greenwald‘s book No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State for Broccoli and Wilson to produce. The book narrates Greenwald's work with Snowden to expose the NSA's domestic spying operations in The Guardian. "No Place To Hide is a terrifying personal account of one of the most relevant political events of our time," Wilson and Broccoli said in a statement. "We are thrilled to be working with Glenn to bring this important story to the screen." But they won't be the first people to deliver a movie about these events.

Broccoli and Wilson are not alone in their passion for the Snowden story. Oliver Stone has them beaten to the punch with a Snowden project of his own for Open Road Films and Endgame Entertainment, which is already filming in Munich and on schedule to be released this year. Stone's Snowden stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the controversial whistleblower. Stone's movie is based on another Guardian journalist's book, The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man, by Luke Harding, and a novel by Snowden's Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, called Time of the Octopus. (That should be the title of the movie!) Harding and other Guardian journalists and staffers will serve as consultants. "This is one of the greatest stories of our time," Stone said in a statement published on Deadline last year. "A real challenge. I’m glad to have The Guardian working with us."

Shailene Woodley (White Bird in a Blizzard) stars opposite Gordon-Levitt as Snowden's girlfriend, Lindsay Mills. Timothy Olyphant (Hitman) plays a CIA agent; Clint's son Scott Eastwood (Fury) plays an NSA agent, and Nicholas Cage plays a what Deadline describes as "a former U.S. Intelligence official." Anyone who's seen Citizenfour or "United States of Secrets" can probably guess that this character is likely based on NSA whistleblower William Binney, who plays a crucial role in the story. Zachary Quinto (Hitman: Agent 47) plays Glenn Greenwald (good casting!), Melissa Leo (The Equalizer) plays Citizenfour filmmaker Laura Poitras, and Tom Wilkinson (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol) plays Guardian defense and intelligence correspondent Ewen MacAskill. Joely Richardson (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) and Rhys Ifans (Elementary) round out the impressive cast. A few weeks ago, Deadline revealed the first photos of Gordon-Levitt as Snowden (above).

Snowden is currently slated to open Christmas Day. It will be interesting to see if Stone's film clicks with audiences like All the President's Men or flounders in its proximity to the events it's portraying like Bill Condon's 2013 Julian Assange movie The Fifth Estate and fails to find viewers. If it's a hit, will Broccoli and Wilson still proceed with their Snowden movie? Presumably they won't be turning their full attention to it until after SPECTRE comes out, and it's possible that more time passing from Snowden's exposure of classified material and subsequent flight to Russia will give them the perspective necessary to make a better film. It's a complex news story, and there is certainly room for multiple films with multiple perspectives on the issues and events surrounding the divisive Snowden. Personally, I hope both movies become a reality. I'd really like to see Broccoli and Wilson's take on real world espionage.

Upcoming Spy Music: The President's Analyst Finally Gets a Soundtrack Release

Quartet Records recently announced the first ever official soundtrack release of Lalo Schifrin's score for Theodore J. Flicker's peerless James Coburn spy satire The President's Analyst—one of my very favorite spy movies. (One day I'll get back to doing that series of reviews of My Favorite Spy Movies, and The President's Analyst and Otley will probably be next.) It's paired with Schifrin's score for the Cliff Robertson suspense drama Man on a Swing. (I've never seen that one.) The President's Analyst follows Coburn as a psychoanalyst selected by the heads of the thinly disguised CEA (Central Enquiry Agency) and FBR (Federal Bureau of Regulation) to be the President's personal analyst. But soon the pressures of the job become too much to bear, and the man with all of the nation's secrets in his head goes on the run, making himself a target for spies of all nations (including Russia and Canada) and, worse than the KGB, the omnipresent Phone Company. It's a hilarious film that deftly treads the line between Pink Panther-style absurdity and smart, prescient satire. Its prescience, in fact, is somewhat scary, as the film neatly predicted our current surveillance culture and willing surrender of our privacy in exchange for the latest communications gizmos. Rather unfortunately, it remains as relevant today as it was when it was made in 1967. Per Quartet's copy, "the terrific Schifrin score, one of his most imaginative from the period (and one of the most desired by his fans), is a kaleidoscope of parodic patriotic music, throbbing spy/suspense sound, pop, jazz, Christmas songs and a catchy 'paranoid' theme." Sadly, the soundtrack appears to be missing the folk epic "Inner Manipulations" by "Eve of Destruction" singer Barry McGuire that scores the movie's best setpiece, as well as The Clear Light's "She's Ready to Be Free." (The latter at least is available elsewhere, but the movie version of the former is the piece of music from this film I, frustratingly, most want to own!)

Rock songs aside, though, Schifrin's score is also terrific and I've long desired it as well, and am very happy I'll finally be able to own it! Quartet does offer connoisseurs a word of warning about their source material, however: "Sadly, the only available source for The President’s Analyst was the mono music stems, but we have made a big effort to restore them as much as possible. We have evened out the up-and-down shifts in volume and minimized the small bits of dialogue that bled into the audio masters. We think the end result is satisfactory—and the music is well worth the effort!" I'm sure it is. I've always been quite happy with Quartet's releases, including their epic, 2-disc, as near-definitive-as-possible version of Burt Bacharach's score for the 1967 Casino Royale. And if that release, which went out of print, started commanding astronomical prices, and eventually earned a rare second printing due to popular demand, is any indication, you may want to get your hands on The President's Analyst sooner rather than later. Like the first printing of Casino Royale, it's limited to just 1,000 copies. And without the juggernaut affiliation of James Bond, I suspect that in this case, when they're gone, they're gone. And if you need one more reason to pull the trigger, the record company promises that "the lavish package includes a 20-page booklet with in-depth liner notes from film music writer Jeff Bond." Man on a Swing/The President's Analyst is available for pre-order from Screen Archives Entertainment for $19.95. You can listen to samples from it on Quartet's website. Here's the complete track list:

MAN ON A SWING

1. Maggie’s Theme (0:23)
2. Source Muzak #2 (1:06)
3. Source Muzak #1 (0:34)
4. Maggie’s Theme (0:56)
5. Evelyn Story (1:42)
6. Source Muzak #3 (0:41)
7. Wills’ Trance (5:56)
8. Source Muzak #5 (1:21)
9. Source Muzak #6 (1:41)
10. Source Muzak #7 (0:35)
11. Rosehaven Motel (1:54)
12. Maggie Retraced (1:49)
13. Source Muzak #9 (1:20)
14. Choked Up (1:48)
15. Juke Box Source (1:25)
16. Radio Source (1:39)
17. Dialatone / Empty Porch / Mailman / Phone Voice / A Wet Nothing (3:25)
18. Penultima Trance (4:11)
19. Wills’ Last Trance (1:14)
20. Forest Finale (0:21)
21. End Credits (1:17)

THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST

22. Paramount Seal and Opening / Main Title (4:46)
23. Hey Me (2:24)
24. The Long Walk (1:02)
25. The Nest (1:27)
26. On Call (1:58)
27. Lonely Hours (1:29)
28. Paranoid Starts / Cocktail Lounge (3:14)
29. Spies Paranoid / Dream Paranoid / Suspicious Paranoid (0:43)
30. Sidney Plans Escape (1:30)
31. Car Radio / More Car Radio (2:12)
32. Total Sound (1:15)
33. Stinger #1-2-3 / Cooler and Sweater Number (1:10)
34. Sidney’s Flight (2:02)
35. Fast Boat to Moscow (1:40)
36. Telephone Trap (1:09)
37. T. P. C. / Cerebrum Communicator (1:47)
38. End Title (3:05)

Entertainment Weekly Reveals Cool Man From U.N.C.L.E. Movie Details

In its summer movie preview, Entertainment Weekly has revealed some very cool details about Guy Ritchie's upcoming movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. We already knew that it was a period piece set in the era of the TV show (and the height of spymania), the 1960s, and we knew from the trailer that East/West checkpoints play a role. But until now I hadn't seen anything to indicate that the movie would feature one of my very favorite tropes of Cold War spy fictions both fantastical and realistic—a Berlin wall crossing! According to the magazine, "In one extended chase sequence, Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and Gabby Teller (Alicia Vikander) elude Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) by zip-lining across the Berlin Wall." This, of course, happens before the American and Russian agents eventually team up, as the movie serves as an origin story for the famous partnership. I would guess the zip-lining leads into the sequence we've seen in the trailer (albeit clearly edited out of order) in which Illya pursues the pair in a nighttime car chase. EW provides some terrific concept artwork for the sequence, too (above). "What we’re trying to capture are iconic memories of the East-meets-West scenario,” Ritchie told the magazine. "Getting over the Wall is part of that world." The stunt, EW reports, was inspired by a real-life incident in 1983 in which Michael Becker and Holger Bethke fled East Berlin in the same manner. "We looked up every conceivable way of getting over the Berlin Wall," said Ritchie. "That was the most plausible." (But did he consider Jason King's method of being transported across in a shipping crate lined with luxurious cushions and stocked with champagne?) As well as the series itself, Ritchie was inspired by the Sixties Bond movies and the Harry Palmer films starring Michael Caine. Wall crossing plays a major role in the second of those movies based on Len Deighton's novels, Funeral in Berlin. And the concept of escaping an Eastern Bloc nation also recalls one of the very best episodes of the TV show, Season 1's "The Dove Affair." I would be very happy if it turns out that the movie leans heavily on that Robert Towne-penned classic! Henry Cavill News has scans of additional illustrations from the print version of Entertainment Weekly, including a cool storyboard image of the zip-lining sequence.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. opens August 14.

Gary Oldman's Tinker Tailor Sequel Headed to HBO?

It's been quite a while since we've heard anything on the Smiley front about a follow-up to Tomas Alfredson's fantastic 2011 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (review here). More than two years ago, StudioCanal Chairman and CEO Olivier Courson revealed, "We are working on Smiley’s People with Working Title. It’s still at the development stage - but, yes, the old team of Peter Straughan and Tomas Alfredson is back together." Now, Tinker co-writer Straughan has just scripted Wolf Hall, the popular and well received miniseries adaptation of Hilary Mantel's bestselling novels about Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII. The Writers Guild of America's official magazine, Written By, interviewed Straughan about the miniseries for their current issue, and in the course of the article casually drops this previously unreported tidbit: "Currently, [Straughan] is adapting the Le Carré novel Smiley's People for HBO. It's another huge task...." HBO? That's interesting! HBO was not involved in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which was produced by StudioCanal and Working Title Films, and distributed in the U.S. by Focus Features. The film performed better and made more of a critical and cultural impact in Britain (where it won two BAFTA Awards) than the States, so I suppose it's possible that StudioCanal couldn't find a theatrical partner in the U.S. and instead opted for TV.

HBO has indeed proved a refuge lately for A-list filmmakers with adult projects. Steven Soderbergh famously made his dream project Liberace there after every film studio in town reportedly passed on a theatrical version despite the attachment of stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. It's also possible that HBO Films might be involved in a theatrical venture. While most of their theatrical features, like this summer's Entourage, are based on existing HBO shows, they did offer a limited run of the documentary Going Clear last month. The involvement of HBO also raises the intriguing question of whether the Seventies-set sequel, which Straughan has previously said would incorporate some elements of the second novel of the "Karla Trilogy," The Honourable Schoolboy, with the bulk (and title) of the third, Smiley's People, might emerge as a miniseries instead of a feature. It was, of course, previously filmed that way by the BBC in 1982. Personally, I would bet not. I would hazard a guess that we might be looking at a StudioCanal/Working Title/HBO co-production released theatrically in Britain and Europe and airing on HBO (perhaps in conjunction with a limited, Oscar-qualifying theatrical run) in the United States. But I would sure love some sort of official announcement that might shed some more light on the subject! It's a pity Written By didn't ask a follow-up question for clarification.

As long as the key team of Alfredson (Let the Right One In), Straughan (The Debt) and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (SPECTRE) all return, and key actors like Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ciaran Hinds are involved, I don't much care if I see the sequel in a theater or on TV. Just so long as we get to see another Oldman Smiley movie! If HBO were to bring substantial extra funding to the equation, though, what I would really like to see would be the Hong Kong-set Honourable Schoolboy as that follow-up before concluding the trilogy with Smiley's People. Alas, it seems unlikely we'll ever see that masterpiece properly adapted due to cost issues. And I can hardly complain about a new version of Smiley's People, which is also a wonderful novel!

Read my article "George Smiley: An Introduction" here.

Support Assassin 9 on IndieGoGo

My friend Chad Jones has created what promises to be a really cool spy comedy web series, Assassin 9, and he and his partners have turned to Indiegogo to raise finishing funds. I've read the script, and personally I can't wait to see Chad's somewhat warped vision realized. The five-part series follows Agent J9, Janine, an "offensive security specialist" in the SPECTRE-like S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Corporation, a multinational conglomerate whose business model happens to include world domination. Janine is an expert when it comes to killing, but never lands the big assignments because she doesn't have the seduction skills necessary for more delicate missions. She's got to get her act together or face termination—literally. To overcome her shaky relationships with HR director Gladys and sociopathic CEO the Komodo, Janine will have to seek help from her chief rival, Bogdana, an Eastern-European vixen with nothing but contempt for J9. Assassin 9 has something for just about everyone who's ever toiled as a corporate drone to relate to: disagreeable coworkers, nondisclosure agreements, insurmountable corporate bureaucracy, lasers, ninjas, sexy spy babes, evil acronyms... you know, the daily grind. Think of it as The Office set inside Hydra. Go poke around the project site, check out the videos, read the pitch, peruse the premiums, take seduction tips from Bogdana, and if you like what you see, please support Assassin 9 on Indiegogo! After all, global domination is always a good cause, right?

Trailer and Poster for Pierce Brosnan's Survivor

At last! We've been hearing about this movie for what seems like years, and now we've finally got our first look at Pierce Brosnan and Milla Jovovich in the new espionage thriller Survivor, directed by James McTeigue (V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin). It's interesting that even though Jovovich is top-billed, the poster clearly makes Brosnan the main attraction. I think Brosnan is always great playing bad guys, going back as far as his turn as a cold-blooded KGB assassin opposite Michael Caine in The Fourth Protocol. It looks like Survivor affords the former Bond the opportunity to put his own spin on the Edward Fox role from another Frederick Forsyth-based movie, The Day of the Jackal. I can't wait to see the results! Robert Forster (Jackie Brown), Angela Bassett (Alias), James D'Arcy (Agent Carter), Roger Rees (If Looks Could Kill) and Dylan McDermott (Olympus Has Fallen) round out the cast. When the movie was first announced, Emma Thompson was also listed as part of the cast, but I see no sign of her here, so perhaps that didn't work out. Survivor is written by Phillip Shelby and is apparently quite similar to, if not actually based on, his 1998 novel Gatekeeper. As reported last month, Survivor will be receive a multi-platform release later this year from Alchemy (formerly Millennium Entertainment), in partnership with Lionsgate.