Spy Movie News – November 29, 2022

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Welcome to our Spy Movie News – November 29, 2022 edition. Face/Off, Darkness of Man, Slow Horses, One Ranger, A Spy By Nature, and The Prize are six of the eighteen upcoming spy movies or series that we’ll fill you in on today.   And we will end with Tom’s Rant about Daniel Craig.

Upcoming Spy Movies and Series 

We have a 18 spy movies and series to discuss so let’s jump right in. As usual, you can go to our website, SpyMovieNavigator.com to find the links to the supporting articles behind this episode. 

Darkness of Man 

Last year, we reviewed the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, The Last Mercenary.  In fact, we released a quick-fire review of that one. Well, Van Damme has signed on to play Interpol operative Russell Hatch, in Darkness of Man.  According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, Hatch finds himself protecting Jayden and his uncle from a group of merciless gangs in an all-out turf war, stopping at nothing to protect Jayden and fight anyone getting in his way — including supposed allies with hidden agendas and nefarious intents. Filming is set to start in Los Angeles in early 2023.  The 62-year old actor has a few projects under way and it’s good to see. 

Slow Horses 

In our October 25th edition of Spy Movie News, we’ve told you about how much we like the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses and that its second season is scheduled to release on December 2, 2022.  Here’s hoping that this show has a very long run.   

It is not just that we like this series.  We also really like it’s lead actor, Gary Oldman.  Oldman has told The Times “I’ve had an enviable career, but careers wane, and I do have other things that interest me outside of acting,” says Gary Oldman, 64, thoughtfully. “When you’re young you think you’re going to get round to doing all of them — read that book — then the years go by.” “I’m 65 next year, 70 is around the corner. I don’t want to be active when I’m 80. I’d be very happy and honoured and privileged to go out as Jackson Lamb [his character in Slow Horses] — and then hang it up.” 

Jackson Lamb is a great role for him to retire from.  We just hope Oldman plays Lamb for a few more seasons. He is a fantastic actor. 

One Ranger 

Mix up some Texas Ranger action and British Intelligence, and you get the upcoming movie, One Ranger.  Starring Thomas Jane and John Malkovich, this thriller brings a Texas Ranger to London to stop a terrorist attack.  Dean S. Jagger and Dominique Tipper also star in this one.  Lionsgate has acquired One Ranger and has not announced an expected release date.  You can read more about it on Deadline.com

A Spy By Nature 

So far we’ve been talking about older actors, well, how about a 20-something taking on a spy role?   Paul Mescal will be starring in A Spy By Nature.    This movie is based on the first novel in the Alec Milius spy series, written by Charles Cumming. In an article on Deadline.com, A Spy By Nature’s director, Kevin Macdonald says “I’ve wanted to make A Spy By Nature for many years – and when I met Paul Mescal, with his beguiling mixture of intelligence, skill, and youth, I knew I’d found the perfect star,” Macdonald said. “This is a very modern spy story – sexy, dangerous, morally ambivalent – and only an actor of Paul’s talent could pull it off.” 

Cummings has written 10 other spy movies.  Is this a start for a new franchise? In that same article, HanWay Films CEO says “I feel confident we will all want to revisit this young spy in his next adventure with what could be the beginning of an exciting new franchise” 

So, let’s see, a young actor taking on a lead role in a spy movie franchise.  A movie that actually has a script and a lead actor assigned to it.  Um, Eon Productions, are you paying attention here? 

Ballerina 

The John Wick series is in the process of creating a spin-off called Ballerina.  Ana de Armas, who showed us her action movie acting chops in No Time To Die, takes on the lead role.  She will be seeking revenge for the murder of her family.  Keanu Reeves, who plays John Wick will make an appearance in this one.  Also joining the cast are Anjelica Huston and Ian McShane.  So, this movie brings in a 30-something lead, De Armas along with some let’s just say “more seasoned” actors.  We have not yet seen an expected release date for Ballerina

Day of the Jackal 

“Downton Abbey” producer, Carnival Films, is coming out with a tv adaptation of The Day of the Jackal. Sky television and the Peacock streaming network has commissioned the series. They are calling it a “contemporary reimagining of the beloved and respected novel and film.” 

The series is expected to go head to production in the summer of 2003.  You can read more about it on Variety.com.  

Jack Ryan Season 3 

Ho, Ho, Ho! Prime Video will be releasing Season 3 of Jack Ryan on December 21, 2022.  Prime is also currently streaming the first two seasons if you need to catch up. Jack Ryan is a series based on the Tom Clancy novels. 

So, after making us wait for three-years, John Krasinski is finally back in the lead role.    Ryan technically isn’t a spy, by title.  He is a CIA analyst who identifies situations and ends up having to deal with them.  It is a narrow distinction. Ryan ends up doing a lot of the dirty work. 

MovieWeb.com has this article if you want to learn more.   

The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare 

Guy Ritchie is directing a World War II spy movie called The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. This movie will star Henry Cavill and Eiza González.  We know, it’s shocking that Henry Cavill is starring in a spy movie (yes, that was meant to be a sarcastic statement). Is this yet another Henry Cavill audition for James Bond? 

Anyway, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is based on true events following strategies of two well-known strategists: Winston Churchill and Ian Fleming.   

The synopsis for the movie says: “The clandestine squad’s unconventional and entirely ‘ungentlemanly’ fighting techniques against the Nazis helped change the course of the war and in part gave birth to the modern Black Ops unit,”.  So, we’ll see where this takes us 

Guy Ritchie and Arash Amel have based the movie on the 2016 book with the same name written by author Damien Lewis.  No slight to Henry Cavill, but it would have been a nice coincidence if actor Damien Lewis took the lead here.  

Face/Off Sequel 

The Face/Off sequel is another movie that we’ve been talking about for a while.   We’ve also speculated that Nicolas Cage will return.   According to a Hollywood Reporter article, Cage “is in various stages of discussion for sequels to such big productions as National Treasure and Face/Off.”  We’re hoping his role in the next Face/Off happens.  

Dirty Angels 

Like Jack Ryan, this one isn’t technically a spy movie.  However, Martin Campbell is the director.  Most spy movie fans will know Campbell directed GoldenEye, Casino Royale (2006), The Foreigner, and The Protégé. 

Dirty Angels is a fictional story of a group of female soldiers who need to rescue kidnapped teenagers during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Eva Green who played Vesper Lynd under Campbell’s direction in Casino Royale and Ruby Rose, who has played Batwoman Kate Kane in the DC tv series and Grace Lewis in SAS: Red Notice, star in Dirty Angels.  

Filming is expected to start in December 2022.  

Operation Napoleon 

No, this has nothing to do with Napoleon Dynamite. Operation Napoleon is a low-budget thriller starring Iain Glen.  You may remember him as Jorah Mormont in “Game of Thrones”. 

The plot focuses on a plane that crashed in 1945 with both German and American officers on board.  Ignoring the wishes of the US military, a lawyer tries to dig into the details of the crash and gets involved in an international conspiracy. 

Operation Napoleon was made on a $7 million budget and the exteriors were filmed mostly in Iceland and is based on a novel that was a best seller in Germany. 

You can read more about Operation Napoleon on The Hollywood Reporter.  

Chief of Station 

In our October 25, 2022 edition of Spy Movie News we told you that the Alec Baldwin-Olga Kurylenco spy movie, Chief of Station, was heading into production in November.  Well, Baldwin has become unavailable due to a schedule overrun of another movie.   So, now Aaron Eckhart will be taking on the lead role in this movie.  From what we’ve read, production has started on this one.   

The Prize 

The Prize is being billed as a “taut Hitchcockian thriller”.  We think that is an apt description as it is based on an unwitting American who flies to Sweden for the funeral of a friend.   Well, he gets ensnared in a web of corruption and murder.  If we think of The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, or many other Hitchcock movies, this has a familiar ring to it.   Jason Clark and Haley Bennett star in The Prize.  Shooting is expected to start in the spring of 2023.  

You can read more about The Prize on Deadline.com.  

Canary Black 

CIA operative Avery Graves, played by Kate Beckinsale is blackmailed by terrorists to save her husband in the upcoming spy movie, Canary Black. Graves is cut off from her team and has to figure out how to get the kidnappers what they want.  

Canary Black is currently in principal photography.  Rupert Friend also stars in this thriller.  

Dixie Crystal 

Dixie Crystal was the name of a real-life FBI Operation.  Well, now it is the name of a movie starring Rob Morgan as FBI agent Jim Anderson.  If we remember in Licence to Kill, Bond’s objective was to stop Franz Sanchez’s heroin operation. 

In Dixie Crystal, Agent Anderson has to take down a drug Kingpin and stop the distribution of methamphetamine from Harlan, Kentucky. 

Filming is expected to start in April 2023. 

Red Shirt 

Yet another movie is coming out with the goal of trying to create a spy movie franchise.  This time it is Channing Tatum starring in Red Shirt. Not many details have been released on this one.  However, we know that David Leitch who directed Bullet Train and Deadpool 2 is signed on to direct Red Shirt.   They are touting the movie as “a new spin on James Bond”.    

According to movieweb.com’s article about Red Shirt, a redshirt is a character in fiction who dies soon after being introduced.  So, is that Channing Tatum?  Hmmm.  If so, that has sort of a Psycho feel to it where the star dies early on.   

We’ll keep our eyes peeled to give you more details about this one as they emerge.  

Honey Trapped 

The spec script by April Wolfe for the movie Honey Trapped have been acquired by Studiocanal and The Picture Company. 

Deadline.com tells us that “the story follows a cabal of secret assassins who descend upon Las Vegas for 24 hours to force a rogue agent into fighting their way up every floor of a busy hotel. The script is said to be a star-driven two-hander featuring a married couple on the rocks with a lot of secrets—in the vein of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and True Lies.” 

If that’s accurate, this could be a fun one to watch. 

So yes, we are a long way out before we’ll see Honey Trapped but we like the plot and are eager to see Honey Trapped made.  

They Shined on the Nile 

Moroccan-born director Yasmine Benkiran is working on a project for a spy movie titled “Elles ont brillé sur le Nil” or They Shined on the Nile. This project is set in 1950’s Cairo and revolves around the mysterious death of a famous actress known as Asmahan.  

They Shined on the Nile is still in development, so we’ll have to see what comes of it.  You can read more about it on Variety.com.  

 Whew that’s a lot of upcoming spy movies and series.  We’ll have to see how they all play out.  

 In Memoriam 

John Aniston 

Jennifer Aniston’s father, John Aniston has passed at age 89.  Known for his long-running roles on “Days of Our Lives” (over 2800 episodes) and “Search for Tomorrow”, Aniston also had roles in the spy tv series “I Spy” and “Mission: Impossible”. 

Ian Whittaker 

Actor and set decorator, Ian Whittaker has passed at age 94.  Whittaker, along with Luciana Arrighi won the Best Art Direction-Set Direction Academy Award for Howard’s End (1992).   He was also nominated for the same category for Anna and the King (1999), Remains of the Day (1993), and Alien (1979). 

Spy movie fans may remember Ian Whittaker for his role as Ordinary Seaman Thomas in the 1958 World War II espionage movie The Silent Enemy

John Dartigue 

John Dartigue has passed at the age of 82.  He was a Warner Bros VP Publicity for movies such as The Fugitive and The Dark Knight.  Prior to Warner Bros, he worked in publicity for United Artists where he worked on publicity for the first 10 James Bond movies. 

Tom’s Rant 

So, we’ll end with Tom’s Rant.   

This is Tom’s opinion, not necessarily Dan’s.

Our friends at The Spy Command had a post talking about the Daniel Craig interview that was in the Los Angeles Times on November 16, 2022.  Spy Command put it this way: “Quotes from Craig’s interviews have split Bond movie fans. Craig fans say that shows why he’s a great actor. Craig critics cite this is why he’s selfish.”

Sign me up as a critic

Well, sign me up as a critic. I think the LA Times article was supposed to be hyping Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Craig’s latest movie.  Instead, it solidified my opinion of how big a selfish, narcissistic jerk (or whatever pejorative you want to use) Daniel Craig is.   

What we are talking about is how Craig thought HE was the one to control what happened to the character of James Bond.  And, if you read the LA Times article, Craig says ‘Well, you need to reset again.’ So let’s kill my character off and go find another Bond and go find another story.”  What a pompous “it’s all about me” buffoon (I had to try about 10 words here before I found one that was clean enough to use).  

It’s not just No Time To Die

As I see it, Craig killed the Bond series, not just with the ending of No Time To Die, but how he shaped the character on screen.  Yes, part of it was the putrid writing of Purvis and Wade, but Craig ruined the character for me. This is very disappointing as I liked Craig’s Bond in Casino Royale.  However, then he changed the character, and not in a good way.    

And as Craig says in the article: “You’re making the mistake that I somehow have a plan,” Craig said with a laugh. “I don’t give it that much thought.” … “ I don’t have a game plan. The things that happen in my life professionally, the decisions I make about them are gut, mainly.” 

If Craig can kill of a character that had a run time of over 50 years, especially since he says he doesn’t have a game plan what else does he think he can do?  And, look at the really ugly predicament he left Eon Productions for going forward.  It’s all about him.  “If I can’t play him, kill him off”.  What a putz. 

Why is Craig still doing Bond ads?

Add the fact that Craig is still doing promotions and endorsements for Bond, as pointed out in another The Spy Command post.  It all shows it’s about him, Daniel Craig.   Craig says he does not “want to go back”.  Then leave already, you’ve done enough damage. 

Well, it does seem that it was Daniel craig’s idea to kill off Bond for a few reasons – one of which was so that he move on. Well, yeah this is all fiction, and anything can happen in fiction. Nonetheless, you don’t kill off Bond. James Bond.  

That’s a wrap! We hope you enjoyed our Spy Movie News – November 29, 2022 edition. You can find the audio of this as a podcast in the show Cracking the Code of Spy Movies on your favorite podcast app or on our website SpyMovieNavigator.com – please help us our and Subscribe!

Spy Movie News for October 25 2022 – Slow Horses, Litvinenko, Citadel, Our Man From Jersey, James Bond and more!

Podcast Episode

Spy Movie News for October 25 2022 – Slow Horses, Litvinenko, Citadel, Our Man From Jersey, James Bond and more!

Today we will examine the spy movies and spy streaming series that are in development. And what did darbara Broccoli say about Bond 26?

Here’s our Spy Movie News – October 25, 2022 edition!

Today we will examine spy movies and spy streaming series that are in development.  We’ll look at Slow Horses, Litvinenko, Citadel, Our Man From Jersey, Kompromat, Codeword: Rubicon, The Gray House, A Spy Among Friends, and many more.  We’ll also react to a comment from Elizabeth Banks about her 2019 movie Charlie’s Angels.  And we’ll react to something that has scared us that Barbara Broccoli said about Bond 26.

As per usual, you can read our Spy Movie News as articles here if you would prefer to read instead of listen.

Ideas/Comments? Info@SpyMovieNavigator.com

Website Episode Page: https://bit.ly/3gHp3Zy

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Spy Movie News – October 25, 2022

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Here’s our Spy Movie News – October 25, 2022 edition!

Today we will examine spy movies and spy streaming series that are in development.  We’ll look at Slow Horses, Litvinenko, Citadel, Our Man From Jersey, Kompromat, Codeword: Rubicon, The Gray House, A Spy Among Friends, and many more.  We’ll also react to a comment from Elizabeth Banks about her 2019 movie Charlie’s Angels.  And we’ll react to something that has scared us that Barbara Broccoli said about Bond 26.

As per usual, you can find all of our Spy Movie News as audio podcast episodes here if you would prefer to listen instead of read.

What’s coming

Let’s start the discussion with some news about a series that we like that is getting ready for its second season.

Slow Horses

We are excited that Apple + has released the trailer for Season 2 of Slow Horses. As I’ve said in the past, we loved season 1 of Slow Horses and have been anticipating Season 2.   As you would expect, if you didn’t see season 1 of this series on Apple +, you can catch up to date.  It stars Gary Oldman, Kristen Scott Thomas, Jack Lowden.  Season 2 also brings back much of the excellent supporting cast.

And here’s the cool part, the trailer says that Season 2 comes out on December 2nd, 2022.   We can’t wait.

Litvinenko

According to Variety, the movie Litvinenko, which stars David Tennant has sold to AMC+ and Sundance Now, among others. Additionally, it is on a variety of streaming services internationally.  It has pre-sold ahead of its debut on ITVX, which is ITVs streaming service slated to launch in November 2022.

Litvinenko is based on the true story of Alexander Litvinenko who you may remember was poisoned and died by polonium poisoning.   Significantly, Litvinenko was a former Russian Federal Security Services and KGB officer who defected to Great Britain. The movie gives us his story.

Citadel

A 6-part spy story will release on Amazon Prime sometime in the future called Citadel. One part is being filmed in Italy. As Riccardo Tozzi, producer and founder of the studio Cattleya tells Variety “The Italian series is a spy story with elements of action, adventure, and fantasy—the genre is simply unprecedented for Italy and for Cattleya.”  The cast is strong for this series as it stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Stanley Tucci, and Richard Madden

Our Man From Jersey

Starring Halle Berry, Mark Wahlberg and J.K. Simmons, is the Netflix movie Our Man From Jersey.  This movie is described as a “blue-collar James Bond.”  It follows the reluctant spy formula that we highlight often on our podcasts.  This time it is Mark Wahlberg who is a construction worker.  He gets involved with the spy game because of his girlfriend, played by Halle Berry.  Filming has begun in Croatia, London, and Trieste Italy.  The supporting actors are strong too including Jackie Earle Haley.   He’s one of those actors who I like in everything he’s done.  He usually plays someone who is a bit quirky so it will be fun to see what they do with him here.  Yep, sign me up when this one is released on Netflix.

Kompromat

We’ve mentioned the upcoming movie Kompromat in a few Spy Movie News episodes in the past.  This movie is somewhat based on a true story about a Frenchman working in Siberia who gets framed.  Although this has been a very successful movie in France since it’s September 7th release, international distribution has begun widely.  Magnolia Pictures has bought the US rights to Kompromat.  As Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles says in VarietyKompromat is an incredibly tense espionage thriller,” … “Jerome Salle and the stellar cast have delivered an exceptional movie.”

Codeword: Rubicon

Swiss Television has commissioned an eight-part series based on the company Crypto AG, called Codeword: Rubicon. The company, launched in the early 1950s was really a front for the CIA and West German Intelligence Services.  It’s a fascinating story and we are eager to see how it is told here.

Codeword: Rubicon is expected to hit pre-production next year, so we’ll have to wait for this one.

American Murderer

You may remember Ryan Phillipe playing FBI agent Eric O’Neil in the 2007 movie Breach which chronicled the take-down of Robert Hanssen for selling secrets to the Russians. That was an adaptation based on a true story.  Well, now Phillipe plays another FBI agent in the movie American Murderer.  This too is based on a true story and stars Tom Pelphrey as Jason Derek Brown.   Brown is a conman that Phillippe’s character has to track down.  Idina Menzel also stars in this movie

American Murderer released at the end of October in theaters in the U.S.

Sanctioning Evil

Zach McGowan, Taryn Manning, Tobias Truvillion, and Chris Tardio star in the movie Sanctioning Evil.  The tagline for this movie is “After being discharged from the military, Sgt. Barnes finds his way back into society via a charismatic politician with a covert plan to eliminate an underground criminal element.”

An article on Movieweb.com gives us more depth including telling us that the criminal element is a challenging one: child trafficking.   This one seems to have a hard edge to it.

There was a limited U.S. release and it is currently available for streaming on Vudu, Amazon Prime Video, and Google Play.

The Gray House

It’s too bad they couldn’t get any big stars for the movie The Gray House.  Oh wait, it stars Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman.  That should be a good sign.

The Gray House is a six-hour series being done by Paramount Global. This is yet another movie or series we’ve talked about today that is based on a true story.  

This time it is a Civil War spy drama which focuses on three women spy ring who, according to an article on Deadline.com  turned the tide in the American Civil War in favor of the North.  Deadline likens the story to that of the 2017 movie Hidden Figures, which also featured Costner. Hidden Figures focused on real-life female mathematician who were vital to NASA and the space program.

A release date has not been announced.

Chief of Station

Chief of Station heads into production this November.  This is the Alec Baldwin – Olga Kurylenko spy movie that we’ve mentioned in earlier episodes.  The casting is shoring up nicely with the addition of Alex Pettyfer who will pay a CIA agent and Chris Petrovski who plays Baldwin’s son.

No release date has been announced for Chief of Station.

Dark Wire

Netflix is bringing us another true spy story.   They have obtained the rights to Joseph Cox’s upcoming book, Dark Wire.  This plot sounds a bit similar to Codename: Rubicon that we mentioned earlier.  According to Deadline.com,  Dark Wire tells the story of how the FBI created a fake telecom company that led to the arrest of over a thousand international criminals.  So, here it is the FBI, not the CIA as in Codename: Rubicon.  But it is still a U.S. government agency creating a front company in order to catch bad guys.

Jason Bateman has signed on to direct Dark Wire.    

The Recruit

Netflix is on a roll.  They will premiere the series The Recruit on December 16, 2022.  In this movie, Noah Centineo plays Owen Hendrix who is a CIA lawyer who has to deal with a former asset who wants to expose why she has been involved with the agency.

The Recruit also has the name Graymail in some other countries.  Additionally, we should also point out that this is not the 2003 movie starring Al Pacino and Colin Farrell.

A Spy Among Friends

The movie The Fourth Protocol had a character named Kim Philby. Kim Philby was a real-life double agent and a lot has been written about his treason.  In the ITVX series A Spy Among Friends, due to be released this fall, Damian Lewis plays Philby’s close friend, Nicholas Elliott.  Elliott is an operative with the SIS who has to interrogate Philby, who is played by Guy Pearce.  So, once again we have a spy movie or series based on real-life.

A Spy Among Friends is based on Ben Macintyre’s book about Philby.  Given that it stars Lewis and Pearce, this is a series we will definitely catch.

Vikram Vedha

First appearing in 1986, Vikram is a Bollywood secret agent.   Vikram Vedha brings the character back 27 years later. His mission in Vikram Vedha is to thwart a huge drug deal (sounds a bit like Licence to Kill to us).  Vikram is now a grandfather who has to work with a younger operative named Amar.  They don’t care about the rules and fight crime as they want to.

This is a remake of the 2017 Tamil-language movie with the same name.  However, it is 26 minutes longer.  It has a lot of action in it’s 2 hour and 53-minute runtime.

Our Rant

Ok, this one is a bit different than what we usually talk about on Spy Movie News.  

Elizabeth Banks and Charlie’s Angels

Back in December 2019 we gave a scathing review of the just released movie Charlie’s Angels.   We did not like his movie and one of the things we pointed out what that the movie was marketed towards girls.  It did not do well at the box office.

The movie’s director, Elizabeth Banks was interviewed recently by The New York Times.   Although the interview was supposed to be about her new movie Call Jane, she was asked about Charlie’s Angels.  She didn’t help her cause.  Here’s part of what she said:

“There was a story around Charlie’s Angels that I was creating some feminist manifesto. I was just making an action movie,” Banks said plainly. “I would’ve liked to have made Mission: Impossible, but women aren’t directing Mission: Impossible. I was able to direct an action movie, frankly, because it starred women and I’m a female director, and that is the confine right now in Hollywood. I wish that the movie had not been presented as just for girls, because I didn’t make it just for girls. There was a disconnect on the marketing side of it for me.”

Well, for us, here at Spy Movie News, the ‘marketing for girls’ was only part of the problem with the movie.  The script wasn’t very imaginative which we think hurt it more that the marketing.  It sounds to us that Banks is carrying a large chip on her shoulder about the marketing, but we doubt the movie would have been successful with different marketing.  It just wasn’t a good movie, let alone a good spy movie.

Please Tell Me This Isn’t True

An article on The Spy Command says Barbara Broccoli has said that Neal Purvis and Robert Wade will probably work on Bond 26.  PLEASE NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!

As I’ve said in the past, these are the two that ruined the Bond franchise in our opinion.   Occasionally, they did alright. The World is Not Enough was their first Bond script and they did well with Casino Royale (2006) but they had the Fleming book to work with.  But then they lost track of who Bond is.  Let’s see: Die Another Day, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, and then finally No Time To Die.  Although some of those did well at the box office, the character of Bond changed a lot, and not in a good way from the way we see it.  They really boxed themselves in with Skyfall by focusing so much on age and the old way of doing things. That’s where they really lost it. 

Then please, who was the character Daniel Craig was playing in No Time To Die?   It wasn’t the James Bond I know.

Can’t we please just have Purvis and Wade meet the same fate as they wrote for M, Leiter, and Bond?  The franchise needs new blood. We think they have to go.

In Memoriam

We lost some major talent this month. 

Angela Lansbury

We’ll start with Angela Lansbury who passed at the age of 96. She was best known for her work on stage and her role in the tv series, “Murder She Wrote”.  She was also the voice of Mrs. Potts in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.   

Ms. Lansbury had success in espionage movies as well.  She was nominated for 3 Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.  Her final nomination was in 1963 for her portrayal of Miss Eleanor Shaw Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate.  She also played Miss Froy in the 1979 remake of the Hitchcock classic The Lady Vanishes.  Herfans will be able to see her final movie performance in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery starting on December 23rd.

Robbie Coltrane

Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane passed at age 72.   Robbie Coltrane was known as Hagrid to fans of the Harry Potter series. To James Bond fans, he was Valentin Zukovsky in GoldenEye and The World is Not Enough, one of our favorite characters in the series.

His birthname was Anthony Robert McMillan.  He was a fan of jazz and took the name Robbie Coltrane as an homage to John Coltrane.

Douglas Kirkland

Douglas Kirkland pass at the age of 88.   Kirkland was a very skilled and sought-after celebrity photographer. An article on Variety.com tells us that he earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Operating Cameramen and the president’s award from the American Society of Cinematographers.   Some of his work includes his photographs of Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Coco Chanel, Audrey Hepburn, and many more.  Lastly, for the spy movie fan, Douglas Kirkland was the uncredited Still Photographer on the James Bond movie Licence to Kill.

Dennis Virkler

And finally, editor Dennis Virkler has passed at age 80.  During his career, he earned two Academy Award nominations for Editing.  The first was for The Hunt for Red October which he shared with John Wright.  The second was for The Fugitive which he shared with 5 other editors.

We hope you enjoyed this Spy Movie News – October 25, 2022 edition.  If you did, please subscribe to our show – Cracking the Code of Spy Movies – in your favorite podcast app and on YouTube.  

Spy Movie News – June 28 2022 – The Gray Man, Spy Kids, Slow Horses and more!

Podcast Episode

Spy Movie News – June 28 2022 – The Gray Man, Spy Kids, Slow Horses and more!

Here's our Spy Movie News for June 28 2022. we look at the July spy movies release schedule, spy movies in production and some industry news.

Join us for our Spy Movie News for June 28 2022. In this episode we look at spy movies being released in theater and on streaming platforms in July, 2022, including The Gray Man and Code Name Banshee. We’ll also look at spy movies in production and some industry news. Oh, and we’ll throw in a tidbit about the Glastonbury festival and a show coming to Broadway.

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