Pierce Brosnan, a former 007 actor alone, is going to appear in three spy films, separate from each other, of course. He completed work on November Man, which was based on the novel There Are No Spies by Bill Granger, featuring his main character, Devereaux, caught in a war with his protege. The character of Devereaux, as reported, is a former CIA agent who's also a mixture of George Smiley and James Bond, two famous fictional spies in both literature and on-screen media. The mixture, somehow, reminds me of John Steed of The Avengers, who had a similar mixture: Calm, genius, humane and incredible strategist as Smiley; Womanizer, unbelievably skilled in deduction, stealth, martial arts, driving exotic cars and any kind of vehicles, including piloting a helicopter or a plane, be it a regular one, or a jetfighter, just like James Bond. You see, I haven't read any of Granger's November Man novels, so I cannot tell whether he's much like Steed or not, but soon we will find out. No release date has been scheduled as of yet, but Brosnan announced on his Instagram that it will be released sometime in 2014. If you ask me, I can't wait to see this as it's Brosnan's long-awaited comeback to the spy arena. The other members of the cast are Olga Kurylenko, Bill Smitrovitch, Luke Bracey and Will Patton. Roger Donaldson is still handling the project on his own, and Marco Beltrami is composing the soundtrack.
An official image from November Man posted on Pierce Brosnan's Instagram.
Reportedly, Brosnan has already started filming The Coup with Owen Wilson in the lead. It's not exactly a spy film, but an action thriller which tells the story of an American family caught in a warzone where mercenaries have been executing every foreigner around the area. It's described as akin to Liam Neeson's Taken, with the Dowdle brothers writing, producing and directing the film. Along with Owen Wilson, Lake Bell co-stars in this thriller, as Wilson's spouse, who's reportedly named Annie Dwyer, a mother of two children and a faithful wife to her husband, living the life of a happy family until the chaos breaks loose. Brosnan's role, in this film, is a supporting one, where the spy connection comes around. His character is said to be named Hammond, a British operative who's mysterious but very patriotic. Currently, it's being filmed in Thailand.
Starting production in mid-January 2014, Milla Jovovich will star in a down-the-earth spy thriller called Survivor, set to be directed by James McTeigue based on a script written by Phil Shelby, along with the Winkler brothers producing it. According to IMDB, written by Ben Read on the page, the plot says the following:
"A State Department employee newly posted to the American embassy in London is charged with stopping terrorists from getting into the U.S. That puts her right in the line of fire and she is targeted for death and framed for crimes. Discredited, she is forced to go on the run while she tries to clear her name and stop a large-scale terrorist attack set for New Year's Eve in Times Square".
It looks like something we saw with Angelina Jolie's Salt in 2010, where the main protagonist is female, and has been blackmailed which leads her to end up being on the run while trying to uncover the truth. Back to Survivor, alongside Jovovich, a list of famous names will making appearances, which includes Emma Thompson, Angela Bassett, Dylan McDermott and of course, our masterspy Pierce Brosnan, who will join the production on February due to his filming schedules on The Coup. None of the characters aside from Jovovich's have been revealed and neither have had reports on their particular and respective roles. Who knows? Time will tell everything. The film is expected to be released sometime in 2015.
Based on a character created by the infamous but the late Tom Clancy, and played by numerous actors previously, including Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck, this time Chris Pine has been picked to play the role of CIA operative Jack Ryan, starring in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, which is based on none of Clancy's novels, unlike its predecessors, which share nothing in common but the character of Ryan. Kenneth Branagh, who plays the main antagonist in this action-packed thriller, took the helm of the project as well, with the screenplay written by Adam Cozad and David Koepp. As it's a reboot of this universe, the story features Ryan promoted from an analyst working for the CIA to field agent after he inadvertently uncovers evidence of an imminent terrorist attack. With no intelligence to verify his discovery, Ryan is sent to Moscow to continue his investigation, where he soon encounters Viktor Cherevin, an enigmatic businessman at the centre of a plot to cripple the global economy. As Ryan learns to navigate the world of intelligence, fend off assassins and address the potential breakdown of his marriage, he comes to the realisation that it may already be too late to stop Cherevin from ushering in an economic catastrophe of unprecedented scale. The film also co-stars Kevin Costner and Keira Knightley, who appears to be playing the spouse of the lead character. However, Pine is no stranger to spy roles, as he previously played an American Bond-like character in a comedy film This Means War, alongside Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hardy. The soundtrack has been composed by Patrick Doyle, who contributed in many of Branagh's projects, unusually took him seven months to accomplish the task. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit will make its debut on the screen on 17th January 2014, so I suggest you all spy fans to bulk up for this thriller.
Theatrical Poster for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.
Straight after witnessing the success of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which has taken different direction from the previous three installments, Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures came to agreement to make another installment in the franchise. Brad Bird, the director of Ghost Protocol, has been showing some interest into returning to make another Mission: Impossible movie, but later withdrew the offer for unknown reasons. And instead, Christopher McQuarrie was brought in to replace Bird as the director. Cruise previously worked with McQuarrie on Jack Reacher, which was based on the character of the same name and the novel One Shot by Lee Child. The screenplay is written by Drew Pearce, who has been a most-wanted-screenwriter in Hollywood in more recent days. Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner are confirmed to be reprising their roles as Benji Dunn and William Brandt, respectively. It's unknown whether Ving Rhames or Paula Patton will join them, but here's me hoping so. It starts production on February 2014, and a release date has been announced, as well. Mission: Impossible 5 will light the fuse on Christmas 2015. But, the thing that troubles me in the production is that they should have been releasing the film in 2016, as that year marks the 50th Anniversary of the franchise which started as TV Series in 1966 and lasted until 1973, later renewed for two years from 1988 to 1990. It was said that the crew on the project want to clear Jim Phelps' name as he was portrayed as a double-crossing villain in the first film, which has made many fans of the original series upset, including me. How can anyone turn a heroic and very patriotic, good hearted man into a villain? That does not make sense at the slightest. So, I hope Phelps will be brought in to clear his name in the fifth movie, so the one in the first film would be identified as an impostor, that could be resulting in one hell of a twist, if you ask me, I'd love to see him returning. Peter Graves was said to be offered the role of Phelps in Ghost Protocol, but didn't make it to the production due to his heart attack, now deceased. That caused the writers to edit him out of the story and save it for the proposed sequels.
Promotional Still from Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, featuring Jeremy Renner and Tom Cruise.
And finally, the long-awaited film adaptation of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. comes around which started life in the 1980s, but ended up getting a teleplay adaptation for a proposed re-union series, which didn't turn out to be well-received. The project passed on many scripts, story ideas, directors, writers however until it came to Steven Soderbergh's attention who wrote a screenplay for the film with Scott Z. Burns, and the role of Napoleon Solo was offered to George Clooney, and the production was slated to begin on March 2012. Executives from Warner Bros. wanted the budget to stay below $60 million, but Soderbergh felt that amount would not be adequate to fund the 1960s-era sets and props and the multi-continental settings required in the film. Eventually, Soderbergh passed on this adaptation and walked out along with Burns and Clooney himself. Guy Ritchie tookover the helm shortly afterwards and wrote a brand new screenplay with his colleague, Lionel Wingram, who's also funding the project. Tom Cruise, reportedly, joined them to play Solo, but later turned down the role to focus on Mission: Impossible 5. Later, it was announced that Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer will star as Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin in this film adaptation of the famous 1960s spy series of the same name created by Sam Rolfe and Ian Fleming, the creator of the James Bond franchise, who's uncredited on the show, forced to sell his share by EON Productions in the sixties, and abandon the series. Hugh Grant plays Alexander Waverly, which in this re-imagination of the franchise, is younger than the one portrayed by Leo G. Carroll. Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. centers on CIA agent Solo and KGB agent Kuryakin. Forced to put aside long-standing hostilities, the two team up on a joint mission to stop a mysterious international criminal organization, which is bent on destabilizing the fragile balance of power through the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. The duo’s only lead is the daughter of a vanished German scientist, who is the key to infiltrating the criminal organization, and they must race against time to find him and prevent a worldwide catastrophe. In my opinion, this movie sounds like a lot amusing to me as we get to see a throwback retro sixties spy thriller. No release date has been scheduled yet, but it will definitely be coming in 2014 since it marks the 50th Anniversary of the original show.
These are the spy films coming up, I hope you're excited. Thanks for reading and wish you a very Merry Christmas!
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