Here’s our Spy Movie News - August 30, 2022 edition.

Today we will discuss the September releases of spy movies. We’ll also look at some ongoing projects like Bang!, “True Lies”, The Stranger, “Dr. Evil”, James Bond, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Enigma, and more!

We’re going to start this article by discussing a fun and unique way that one company is celebrating the 60 years of James Bond movies.  We’ll talk about some others later in this episode. About 60 miles north and west of Chicago is the Richardson Adventure Farm. Among their annual event calendar is what they call the “World’s Largest Most Intricate Corn Maze”.  Well, this year they are celebrating the 60 years of James Bond movies with their 28-acre maze. If you look at the aerial view of the maze this year you will see the gun barrel with Honey Rider, all of the actors who’ve played James Bond, the Aston Martin DB5, and more.  You find out more on their website.

Spy Movie Navigator has received no compensation for this mention.

Ok, so now let’s talk about spy movies in development

Spy movies in development

Bang!

Idris Elba and Davide Leitch are joining forces for a spy thriller called Bang!. Elba will be starring as the world’s most famous spy.  His assignment?  Well, it’s to kill the author of a series of novels created by a group that wants to start the apocalypse.

Matt Kindt and Wilfredo Torres created the comic series “Bang!” that this movie will be based on.  Kindt and Zak Olkewicz will be creating the adaptation for the movie.

David Leetch, who directed Atomic Blonde and most recently Bullet Train will be directing this feature.

We don’t know when it will be filmed or released, but this sounds like a good one.  Netflix will be the platform to deliver Bang!.

Matt Kindt is on a hot streak with Netflix.  They have also picked up his “Mind MGMT” series which is about a government agency of spies.  They will be turning this into a Netflix series.  With Kindt getting set to release another comic series called “Spy Superb” can Netflix get a movie and two series out of Kindt’s work?   We’ll have to wait to find out as nothing on a Netflix/Spy Superb collaboration has been announced.

True Lies

We’ve mentioned the upcoming “True Lies” television series in a few Spy Movie News episodes now.  In the upcoming CBS series,  Steve Howey will take on the role of Harry.  Ginger Gonzaga will star as Helen.   As a reminder, those roles were played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis in the movie. Omar Miller takes on the role of Gib who was played by Tom Arnold in the movie.

We got some encouraging news on this one.  In an article on movieweb.com, Howey says “We're not going to do the Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis movie, it's a classic, that stands alone. We're doing something else and we're doing our own thing, but that's based in that system.”

We are very happy to see that this won’t just be a copy of the movie.  As Howey mentions, the movie is a classic.   Let’s see where they take it.

The Stranger

Sometimes a true story needs to be made into a movie.  Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival this year, The Stranger is expected to be launched globally this October. This is a Netflix movie that hit Australia this month.   It is based on a real-life undercover operation in Australia.  Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris star in the movie.  

The description of the movie says “A friendship forms between two strangers. For Henry Teague (Sean Harris), worn down by a lifetime of physical labour, this is a dream come true. His new friend Mark (Joel Edgerton) becomes his saviour and ally. However, neither is who they appear to be, each carry secrets that threaten to ruin them – and in the background, one of the nation’s largest police operations is closing in.”

As a note, Netflix had a series in 2020 with the same title but on a different topic.

Enigma

A movie described as a cross between James Bond and Tomb: Raider has been picked up by Thunder Road Pictures.  Enigma, written by Kat Wood is called an “original contemporary supernatural spy thriller on Deadline.com.  The movie is about a British Spy called Emma Taylor.  She needs to hide a dangerous artifact keeping anyone from ever finding it again.

We haven’t seen anything about production or a release date, but we’ll keep an eye on this one.  As you know, we like spy movies that have a different twist than the genre usually produces.  It sounds like we have that in Enigma.

MR-9

We talked about MR-9 in our June 2022 Spy Movie News.  This is a spy movie based on the Masud Rana novels starring Frank Grillo.  The cast is filling out nicely as it has been announced that  Kelly Greyson is being brought on to play Gia, the lead henchwoman.

Chief of Station

Set to begin filming later this year, Chief of Station has announced its leads.  Alec Baldwin will play a former CIA station chief.  He teams up with a rogue agent played by Olga Kurylenko after finding out that his wife’s death was not an accident.

We have not seen an estimated release date for Chief of Station.

Dr. Evil

We’ve been talking for quite a while about a new Austin Powers movie and we hope we get one.  Well, movieweb.com tells us that New Line “would like to make a Dr. Evil movie”.   The article posits that the success of Joker, which was also focused on the villain,  means that  Dr. Evil could work.  We will just have to wait and see if anything finally happens in bringing out the fourth movie in the Austin Powers franchise.

Spy Kids

Another upcoming spy movie that we’ve talked about in the last few Spy Movie News episodes is the Netflix reboot of Spy Kids.  Now we find out that DJ Cotrona has signed on to appear in the movie. We don’t know what his role will be.  But, things seem to be moving quickly for this still-unwritten movie.   

Blackbird

We’re talking about the Michael Flately spy movie Blackbird, not the Apple + miniseries Black Bird.  We mentioned this movie in last month’s Spy Movie News and said that it would only be in theaters in Ireland.  Well, it looks like they have added some new theaters in the UK including The Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square in London, and will also show the city of Bristol.  We believe it may hit other UK cities too but we haven’t found confirmation as of our press time.

Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible 7

Variety.com tells us that “Paramount has reached a confidential settlement with Chubb, its insurer, over claims arising from repeated COVID-19 production delays on ‘Mission: Impossible 7.’”  This lawsuit came about in August 2021 with Paramount claiming it was owed much more than what Chubb was claiming.

Mission: Impossible 8

Ok, so let’s move on to Mission: Impossible 8 or I mean Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two.  I’ll never get used to that name.

Anyway, we have a bit of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two news.  First, more of the cast has been flushed out as filming has begun.  Holt McCallany is joining the movie and will be playing secretary of Defense Bernstein.   Mindhunter fans will remember that McCallany played Bill Trench in that series.  He was not in Dead Reckoning Part One, so it will be interesting to see how his role plays out and if it is set up in Part One.

McQuarrie-speak

Next, we have an article on digitalspy.com with the headline “Mission: Impossible 8 might not be Tom Cruise’s final outing as Ethan Hunt.”   Hmmm. The rumor up to this point is that it will.  Well, director Christopher McQuarrie was asked about this on the Light the Fuse podcast.  His response was a classic non-answer:

"Let me tell you, I've been working with Tom Cruise for 15 years and I cannot tell you the number of times I've been standing next to the man, witnessed an event, and then read about it in the trades the next day and none of what they describe is actually true," he said.

McQuarrie needs to go into politics with an answer like that.

On that same podcast, McQuarrie explained the Dead Reckoning title this way:

"When I came up with the title, I knew it applied more to Part Two than it did to Part One, which is why it eventually settled on being Part One and Part Two. The title for the first movie was nearly ... a title that referred to something like a Ghost Protocol kind of thing, it was a government policy – It wasn't a government policy, it was a government, what would you call it? A government measure of last resort, with catastrophic consequences. By the time we got to the end of Part One, that had distilled down into an entirely different set of circumstances that appear in Part Two and not in Part One. So, the word would no longer have been appropriate for the title of Part One."

Yeah, when McQuarrie speaks, we’re not sure we get exactly what he’s saying. And I think that’s his mission.

James Bond

James Bond at 60

We started this newscast by talking about a celebration of James Bond’s 60^th anniversary.  Well, we’ve found out more about the official plans in an article on deadline.com. 

A two-party charity auction is being planned with Christie’s and Eon Productions.  There will be 60 lots and all 25 Eon Productions James Bond movies will be celebrated.  There will be an online auction with bidding starting on 15 September and a live auction will occur on 28 September. 

Now, if you have a spare £2 million (that’s pounds, not dollars), you might be able to get your hands on one of the auction pieces:  a silver birch Aston Martin DB5.  This replica was a stunt car used in No Time To Die.  If you don’t have that much money lying around, there are other vehicles on the auction block that are estimated to go for significantly less.

There are some interesting items for auction and you can see the lots on Christie’s website.

In addition to the auction, BFI will host a “James Bond at 60” weekend of screenings and live events from September 20-October 2^nd.  Included will be an in-conversation event with Michael G.Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. There will also be a behind-the-scenes look at one thing we find fascinating.  Namely the stunts and Special Effects.  Chris Corbould will be hosting that.  There will also be a preview of The Sound of 007.  This is a new documentary that examines the music of Bond.

And finally, there will be screenings of the last three Bond movies on the BFI IMAX screen, including the first UK showing of No Time To Die in 3D.   In our podcast episode No Time To Die – Theater Viewing Formats Guide we talked about how much we liked the 3D work done in this version.  They did a great job with that.  As far as we are concerned, you should only ever watch the title sequence in 3d.

The next actor to play James Bond

On these podcast episodes, for the most part, we’ve been trying to stay away from all the rumors and the betting on who will be the next actor to play James Bond.  Many speculative articles are written about this every month. That said, there is an article on Cinemablend.com that quotes Lorraine entertainment reporter Ross King as saying: “The latest rumor – and in some ways part of this is very much true – which is, basically, the Bond producers are looking for a younger Bond. Someone probably in their 30s. At the end of the day they want someone who will be Bond for the next three movies.”

Now, here at Spy Movie Navigator, we’ve been saying for quite some time that we think that this has to be the strategy.  We think a lot of the “favorites” like Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, and maybe Henry Cavill are too old for what the franchise needs as it comes off the Daniel Craig run as Bond.  So we’ll see if this is right, but not until we hear officially from Eon Productions

What’s coming in September

Again we have a sparse month for spy movie fans as there are no theatrical release of any spy movies in September.  Actually, this September is a sparse month for movie releases in general.

It’s not much better on the streaming platforms

Netflix

On September 1^st Netflix will bring all three Austin Powers movies to the platform.  Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Amazon Prime

Also  on September first, Amazon Prime will release both Skyfall and The Recruit.

And that’s about it for spy movie releases in September, 2022.

In Memorium

In today’s In Memorium section, we remember five people who have had an impact on spy movies who have passed this month.

Bernard Cribbins

Bernard Cribbins passed at the age of 93.   Among Cribbins 122 credits on IMDB are such roles as Felix in Hitchcock’s Frenzy and Wilfred Mott in the tv series “Dr. Who”.  Spy movie fans may remember him as the taxi driver in the 1967 version of Casino Royale as well as two appearances on “The Avengers” tv series.

Wolfgang Petersen

Director Wolfgang Petersen passed at the age of 81.  Petersen was nominated for both the Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material From Another Medium Academy Awards for The Boat (Das Boot) in 1981.  In the spy world, he directed Air Force One and In the Line of Fire.

Gene Lebell

Hollywood stuntman Gene Lebell died at age 89.   He had roles in more than 250 movies.  Besides his role as a stuntman, he also taught martial arts skills to Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Steven Seagal. Spy movie fans would have seen him in Patriot Games, US Marshals, and the tv series “24”. 

Lou Barlia

Cameraman Lou Barlia passed at age 92. His career started as a cameraman for the movie Love Story in 1970 and continued through the 2000 movie Bruno. You’ve also seen his work in Superman, Steel Magnolias, and 61 other movies or tv shows.  Spy movie fans saw his work in Serpico.  In 2000, Lou received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Camera Operators.

Bill Pitman

We end this month’s In Memorium remembering Wrecking Crew guitarist Bill Pitman who died at the age of 102.  Pitman has played guitar, bass guitar, and ukulele on many songs and soundtracks.  He has played on so many songs that we think it is almost impossible that you haven’t heard him play.   Spy movie and tv fans will recognize his bass play on the theme song to the tv show “The Wild Wild West.”  He also played in Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain.

So, that’s a wrap!  We hope you enjoyed our Spy Movie News for August 30, 2022.