Mark Millar's spy film is delayed...

Yesterday, we've got the reports that the film adaptation of Mark Millar's The Secret Service, which is currently shooting in London, with Matthew Vaughn taking the helm, has been delayed. Its release date was supposed to be scheduled at 14th November 2014, but now 20th Century Fox, the distributor of the motion picture, has pushed back the date to 6th March 2015. No further comments have been submitted on the title.

The Secret Service is an adaptation of Mark Millar's comic book miniseries of the same name, which features a veteran MI6 agent, Jack London taking his reluctant nephew under his wing and recruits him to the secret service. Later, however, both are sent to discover and stop a psychotic supervillain from spreading a world-wide catastrophe and murder billions of people on the planet. The film stars Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson and Sofia Boutella, until now.

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'No One Lives Forever': Adam Church and the IP rights...

It's been stated in the previous No One Lives Forever article that the game was originally going to have a dead serious tone in the beginning, with the main character was revealed to be a male spy working for MI0, known as "Her Majesty's Most Secret Service", with the game was set in 1964, taking place in a few European countries. As you know, the product was announced at E3 1999, and was compared severely to the James Bond franchise and its sole high-quality video game at the time, GoldenEye 007, which was equally a First-Person Shooter. No One Lives Forever was something in similar vein, but was never related to the 007 saga at all. However, MGM thought otherwise...

Adam Church was told to be the protagonist of the game who had to help out a German scientist, Dr. Otto Dentz, from east to west. And as things don't go entirely in plan, and the mission goes awry, Church's sole objective was to prevent a world wide conspiracy presented by the terrorist organization called HARM. The basic story survived the development, but the changes in the outlines are truly noticeable. The reason for scrapping out the Adam Church character, and replacing him with a female character to "get away from Bond" with the addition of changing the genre into more of a comedy-themed in the mould of Our Man Flint or Get Smart than leaving it in a dead serious tone was because of MGM threatening Fox Interactive and Monolith to start legal action for "stealing" their property's outlines, thinking that the games company has been stealing all the ideas from MGM/Danjaq's 007 franchise. Completely absurd. Here's the proof...

MGM threatens Monolith to take a legal action if the similarities to the James Bond franchise aren't terminated.

Overall, we haven't seen how Adam Church looks like and it's a shame we have lost a colourful character and a serious spy concept. But, on the bright side, we earned an incredibly beautiful and smoothly smart Cate Archer instead, and a very groovy 1960s spy thriller with the elements of dry humour and action! Fans of No One Lives Forever still demand to see a third installment in the series, but it appears both Monolith, who are acquired by Warner Bros. since 2003, and Sierra/Vivendi, who are merged with Activision Blizzard, aren't available. Sierra Entertainment published No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in HARM's Way and the interquel spin-off Contract JACK, but apparently, they didn't hold the rights to the franchise, nor does Monolith. Activision Community manager, Dan Amrich, stated that the company has no access to No One Lives Forever's IP and its rights.

"The person who I normally talk to about that stuff does not believe that we currently have the rights," said Amrich. "They've never seen it. They've never been given the permission to put that stuff on Good Old Games. They basically said, 'if we had it, I would love to have been able to reissue those games". Amrich continued his investigation by asking Monolith, where his trail got cold. "I contacted a friend at Monolith and he doesn't know." He continued "At this time I do not believe Activision has the rights to No One Lives Forever, so if there were to be a reissue or remake or something like that, it wouldn't come from Activision," he concluded. "I don't know what the future holds for No One Lives Forever, but I don't think that that future involves Activision".

Dan Amrich discusses Monolith's No One Lives Forever.

Activision, not owning the rights to the franchise is a spectacular thing to know, as they have ruined the First-Person Shooter genre ever since they've released their first Call of Duty game, which was as rubbish as the Battlefield series for which Electronic Arts published. It's better not to have a third No One Lives Forever game, than have one which ends up being a trashy Call of Duty/Battlefield clone, with no challenge presented in the product. Not to mention, a pathetic storyline they would write which fits the taste of the "modern" audience and the politically correct balderdash. Who owns the rights to No One Lives Forever? That subject still remains unknown.

'No One Lives Forever': Early Development, Recycle, and Release

In 2000, when The Operative: No One Lives Forever has hit the shelves, it was sold millions of copies all around the world, and resulted in a huge success for both the developer and the publisher. Simply referred to as No One Lives Forever, the game pays a visit back to the 1960s culture where the spy craze was all around the media. Its homage comes from the most notable and iconic spy franchises, specially Our Man Flint, the James Bond series (first five films with Sean Connery), Get Smart, The Man From UNCLE, The Avengers, with the inclusion of Modesty Blaise amongst others. At the time, First-Person Shooter genre was a popular gaming category, which combined all those spy media inspirations into its circle and created a stealthy action video game which left a huge impact on the audience, which spawned a sequel and an interquel spin-off. They were all developed by Monolith Productions and published by Sierra Entertainment, with the exception of the original game being published by Fox Interactive.

Development on the project started in 1998, after Monolith's latest two titles, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division and Blood II: The Chosen were released. The game actually started off as a mission-based, anime-inspired, paramilitary action thriller intended as a spiritual sequel to Shogo, which was supposed to be an action-adventure involving the elements of fantasy, but eventually the project ended up being a 1960s spy adventure in the tradition of Our Man Flint and countless other spy movies and shows of the same nature. After finally signing a contract with Fox, the team was able to draft a mission statement, which stood as a point of reference during every aspect of developing the game. Craig Hubbard, who contributed in designing many Monolith video game titles, insisted that a strong narrative, with twists and turns in the spirit of Charade or Where Eagles Dare, featuring a fiercely competent hero and an assortment of despicable villains, memorable moments, death-defying situations, opportunities for stealth as well as all-out action, and a variety of exotic locales to explore categories are heavily required.

 

Shogo: Mobile Armor Division served as a spiritual predecessor to No One Lives Forever.

Eventually, the game was announced at E3 1999 conference show, with some screenshots and a small footage of the game was shown. Monolith claimed that No One Lives Forever will feature a retro backdrop set in 1964 Europe, complete with the fashions and styles of that time period. The main character was said to be named Adam Church, a British secret agent working for MI0 (pronounced MI-Zero), an ultra secret group operating under the authority of "Her Majesty's Most Secret Service". Reportedly, Church's mission is to help aid in the defection of an East German biophysicist named Otto Dentz. When the mission goes awry when the defector is abducted by a terrorist group operating under the name HARM. This unknown group and its motives for kidnapping Dentz are unknown, and Church finds himself in the midst of perplexing puzzle as he attempts to find him. The player is also able to use several high-tech gadgets, including lock-picks, sunglasses with cycling visions, a cigarette lighter that melts any metal locks sticking onto gates and doors, among the others.

 

Early No One Lives Forever development screenshots featured at E3 1999. A male hand is seen wielding the weapons, and wearing a dark blue suit as it appears. None of these locations have appeared in the final release version of the game.

During the production after the title was surfaced, the game was compared to the James Bond series, and particularly the 1997 video game, GoldenEye 007, which led the developers to get into rage and restart development on No One Lives Forever. Hubbard stated that the intention of the game was to make a 1960s-themed spy adventure, and not a Bond-inspired imitation, leading them to submit many changes to the storyline. Originally, the game was supposed to have a drop dead serious tone, but afterwards, the Austin Powers-styled parody was dragged into the genre, with many standards remained still the same. Each location and level maps seen on the early footage, all of them have been absent in the newer edition. The protagonist, now, has been changed to female operative named Cate Archer, a former thief burglar, now a secret agent in service for the British Monarch, under a super-spy agency UNITY. The only objects that survive from the original development were the weapons. They've also added something in front of the working title to get away from any reference to anything that relates to James Bond and his franchise (particularly the Bond novel written by John Gardner, titled Nobody Lives Forever), with a final conclusion settling on The Operative: No One Lives Forever, with the front name making reference to Cate herself. Not much of the original project was revealed at all, nor a concept art for Adam Church was ever seen. So, nobody but the developers know how did the male protagonist looked like.

An element from the final game features similar stand-off between the protagonist and the enemies, echoing the same cable car scene from Alistair MacLean's Where Eagles Dare.

Cate's first mission was to protect an enemy target from HARM assassins with her own sniper rifle, which reminds the audience of the scene from The Living Daylights, with Bond sent on a similar assignment.

In The Operative: No One Lives Forever, set in 1967, seven active UNITY covert operatives have been assassinated by a mysterious group of terrorists. Cate Archer, a low-ranking agent, has been called into service for her first major assignment, which was to investigate a recently discovered organization which turned out to be HARM and its executive director, former KGB assassin called Dmitrij Volkov. Cate is the first female agent to be recruited to UNITY, and somehow has been "untrustworthy", which is why her superiors are skeptical of a woman working as a field operative, and have previously relegated her to more mundane assignments. Through many betrayals she faced, many murder attempts she survived, many fuses she lit, and many locations she travelled to, Cate finally comes face to face with someone from her past, who wants revenge from the whole world by provoking a conspiracy all over the countries, with the intention of starting a possible World War III conflict. With the only highly-trained agent left in the field, the entire agency counts on Cate Archer who's their only hope for saving the world.

Cate Archer in the Alps, sent to defeat the Baroness Dumas.

In the next two years, a sequel to the game was released with a bit more serious tone, titled No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in HARM's Way, focusing on Cate Archer facing even deadlier enemies. HARM, driven by vengeful plot against Cate, mark her for death, while they develop their evil schemes to provoke a war between the US and the Soviets.

Cate preparing to infiltrate a village where all the female ninjas live.

An interquel, a game that takes place between the previous two installments, was released, which follows the events of the first game, even re-visits some locations that ocurred in the previous adventures, and predates some happenings which took place in the second game. In this title, Contract JACK, the players take control of a contract killer named John Jack, hired by HARM operative, Volkov, to rescue a scientist from a rival terrorist organization called Danger Danger, led by an Sicilian mobster named Il Pazzo (The Crazy One in Italian). It does not involve UNITY nor Cate Archer herself. JACK, however, stands for "Just Another Contract Killer", which points out that he isn't important in the No One Lives Forever chronology and timeline.

"Just Another Contract Killer". Must be John Jack of HARM.

Cate Archer is based on an American model and actress, Mitzi Martin, and was voiced by Kit Harris in the first game. As the character is from a Scottish descent, Harris recorded her voicework in Scottish English accent, but due to the accent itself being used too lower class, she re-recorded her voicework again in a full-time "British Bent" instead. In the second game, however, Cate's look completely differs, as the writers decided to give her a resemblance to an English model, Jean Shrimpton, and this time, she was voiced by Jen Taylor, a professional vocals imitator herself. The character of Cate Archer met generally positive reviews as her games did. She was described as James Bond's female counterpart, and an improved version of Emma Peel.

Mitzi Martin provided her likeness and motion capture performance for the character of Cate Archer in The Operative: No One Lives Forever, even appeared in disguise as Cate during E3 2000.

Jean Shrimpton's likeness was used for Cate Archer's character in No One Lives Forever 2.

A third game, however, was never mentioned about and wasn't even planned. Monolith switched to working on a brand new franchise with a very similar gameplay to No One Lives Forever, but they have nothing in common when it comes to the genre. Rather it's a horror-themed science fiction thriller with a group of elite forces sent to terminate some failed experiments which turn out to be monsters. It resulted in FEAR, which didn't last long. Fans of No One Lives Forever kept demanding to make another installment in the spy series, but Sierra Entertainment, which published the latest two installments in the series, is owned by Activision, who never give any greenlight to video games involving female protagonists. But, it's still unknown who owns the IP to the franchise, but it's most likely Monolith, who are acquired by Warner Bros. a year after Contract JACK's release. In 2008, the US-based Play magazine expressed their desire to see Cate in further sequels than just one or two. Only time will tell.

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Ice Station Zebra gets another screen adaptation...

Alistair MacLean is known for writing many Cold War and spy thrillers in his period of the golden age, from 1955 to 1986. Many of his books have been adapted into films, such as The Guns of Navarrone, Where Eagles Dare, When Eight Bells Toll, Ice Station Zebra, Puppet On A Chain and Force 10 From Navarrone, which was his last golden writing. He also worked on many scripts and story ideas independent from being novels, short stories or certain amount of books, most notably Death Train, which was produced for the small screen in the early 1990s, and later spawning a sequel. Ice Station Zebra itself was one of the best films, and one of the most underrated products in the Hollywood history. It was released in 1968, three years later after the book was published. Starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine and Jim Brown, and directed by John Sturges.

Ice Station Zebra

The plot itself revolves around real-life events taken place during the Cold War era, between the western countries and the Soviets. It was full of suspenseful moments, high-octane thrilling moments, incredible heart-bumping twists, and deadly schemes coming from two enemy sides. The British Intelligence sends a reluctant covert operative, introduced by the name of David Jones (Patrick McGoohan) to retrieve a British top secret microchip placed in a USSR surveillance satellite capsule, which apparently has entered the Earth's surface and landed on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, near Ice Station Zebra. Jones teams up with an American Naval Commander called James Ferraday (Rock Hudson) and his submarine crew to escort him to the exact same location where he needs to investigate. They are joined by a defected Russian spy, Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine), who seems to be accompanying Jones to help him out through the assignment he's sent to clear up; and US combat commander, Captain Leslie Anders (Jim Brown) to control and handle the marines on board. As they take off, they survive many sabotage attempts to which Jones suspects there certainly is a mole in the circle, and informs Ferraday about it. The story never stops the viewer from getting shocked and thrilled from its plot twists and deadly surprises.

Ice Station Zebra novel featuring Dr. Carpenter, the narrator of the story, on the cover.

However, as of 2013, it was reported that Christopher McQuarrie, an American film director, was going to make yet another adaptation of the Alistair MacLean novel of the same name, but the setting remains unknown if it's going to take place in the 1960s as it was in the novel and the film, or at modern times. But, here's one thing that remaking this film would likely result in a huge disaster. Nowadays, Hollywood is known for making everything so politically correct that the material loses its sense of meaning. All they care about is just money and spotlights. For instance, I cannot see anybody taking on either of the roles the actors played in the original movie, but Warner Bros thinks otherwise. If they are going to adapt the novel into film again, modern setting should never occur, but the time should go back to the Cold War era. Re-imagining a material in a different way always causes a disaster for the original audience, who consider the happening to be a big blasphemy. I couldn't blame them at all. However, if it's going to be set in the 1960s again, then I have no one other but to choose Toby Stephens to play the role of David Jones... or Dr. Carpenter as it was in the novel. Of course, sometimes the films differ a lot from their source material, and the 1968 Sturges film was one of those. Stephens' way of acting is way too similar to Patrick McGoohan's performances which personally led me to cast him as John Drake if Danger Man ever got a film adaption one day, but only time tells what could happen.

Alistair MacLean.

As a conclusion to this article, not much of the real story was mentioned or reported. But, it's likely for McQuarrie to cast Tom Cruise in the role of Commander of USN, James Ferraday in the role, as the two worked before on Jack Reacher, an adaptation of a novel in a series of the same name, One Shot, by Lee Child. And they are said to be working together on a fifth Mission: Impossible movie, which I speculate is going to be released in 2016, which marks the 50th anniversary of the franchise.

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Mark Millar's 'The Secret Service' Comic Book gets its screen adaptation!

It appears that the spy craze from the 1960s has been getting revived somehow recently, as in the past decade, the media started forgetting all about them and instead focus an unreal "realistic" Jason Bourne style that's been destroying the spy thriller genre for a long time already. People have nearly forgotten what made that genre smashing; using fantasy-themed plots, larger-than-life/over-the-top villains, unstoppable secret agents in control of every situation they are dragged in, delivering one liners, dressing in the best suits and tuxedos, enjoying vodka martinis that are shaken, but not stirred, and taking the life as an easy subject. But, now, all those things seem to have gone partially, however until Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol reclaimed all the fun that made the spy craze spectacular. By then, following the next year, Mark Millar, one of the most legendary comic book writers, has released his own spy miniseries wholly inspired from the Classic James Bond (1962-2004) movies, and titled the franchise The Secret Service.

The Secret Service characters.

The Secret Service centers on two men at first; secret agent John Edward "Jack" London, MI6's top operative in service for over 30 years, and his nephew, Gary London, a washed out and low-life teenager, living like a streetpunk, hijacking cars and committing non-lethal crimes against the law. To get him out of that madness, Uncle Jack recruits Gary to the British Intelligence, and puts him in training for three years, who would later become as superior as his uncle being a covert operative. As soon as Gary becomes an active agent in service, he teams up with his uncle on a mission to stop a supervillain from provoking a world-wide catasrophe, causing the death of Five Billion People, in order to start a new life, new breed and new world, where everybody would be able to control themselves.

Mark Millar compared the family relationship between Uncle Jack and Gary with the one that occurred between Terence Young, the director of three James Bond movies, and Sean Connery, who played Bond himself in six official films and one unofficial product by Kevin McClory and Irwin Kershner. Connery, at the time, wasn't familiar with the high-life, and to be one, he was trained as a protege by Young, who took him under his wing, and went to the five-star luxurious restaurants, taught him how to speak to women, introduced him to the most proper clothing he should be buying his outfits and suits from. And afterwards, Connery smoothly played James Bond as a tongue-and-cheek character, impossible to defeat. The same things occurred in the events of The Secret Service, where Uncle Jack trained Gary to be his protege, and later replacement if he retires, not just to be a partner.

Uncle Jack shows Gary how to dress like a gentleman super-spy.

Earlier this year, Mark Millar has agreed to adapt the miniseries to film with his long-time pal, Matthew Vaughn taking the helm of the project. Vaughn previously wanted to make a spy movie in the mould of an over-the-top James Bond adventure, unable to get to it, he tried to portray the style of the classy 1960s spy craze in the first three quarters of his X-Men: First Class, a Marvel product, far from being my personal favourite. He told Michael Fassbender, who in time was playing the role of a younger Erik Lensherr (better known as 'Magneto'), to give his persona the feeling as if he was in the essence of the James Bond character. And he succeeded with that one. So, with this opportunity he finally has took, the film he's going to handle is not just a spy movie, but a total utter action movie. In the comics, many famous names such as Mark Hamill (the voice of The Joker from Batman: The Animated Series and its sequels), Pierce Brosnan (The fifth and the final James Bond actor), Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation), among others. But, the question is, will those same actors make appearance in the film itself? or their shoes will be altered by different names?

 

Pierce Brosnan and Patrick Stewart make their cameos in the climactic finale.

So far, only few actors have been cast in specific roles, featuring Colin Firth as Uncle Jack; Taron Egerton, an unknown actor, plays his protege and nephew, Gary London; Michael Caine as the head of the British Intelligence/MI6; Samuel L. Jackson as Gazelle, the main villain's own henchman; Sofia Boutella as Ambrosia Chase, the main villain's girlfriend. Others haven't been revealed yet but filming has already begun, with Firth and Egerton seen on sight, probably playing the part where Uncle Jack offers Gary something he cannot refuse. The film will be released on 14th November 2014 in the US, but a release date for the UK is still being considered.

Colin Firth and Taron Egerton on the set of The Secret Service.

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