Now that John le Carré’s spy novel “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” has been adapted into a highly acclaimed film of the same name that made a bunch of money on a worldwide level, we can probably expect to see a flood of his other works suddenly making their way to the big screen. And at the head of that pack is director Anton Corbijn, who plans to make an adaptation of Le Carré’s “A Most Wanted Man” the followup to his 2010 film The American. The screenplay has been adapted by Edge of Darkness writer Drew Bovell, and tells the story of a mysterious Russian immigrant in Germany.
Or, as the book’s Amazon description puts it:
“A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse round his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa. Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, determines to save Issa from deportation. Soon her client’s survival becomes more important to her than her own career. In pursuit of Issa’s mysterious past, she confronts the incongruous Tommy Brue, the sixty-year-old scion of Brue Freres, a failing British bank based in Hamburg. A triangle of impossible loves is born. Meanwhile, scenting a sure kill in the so-called War on Terror, the spies of three nations converge upon the innocents.”
The big news about this film is that the casting process has begun, and they’ve already got a huge name in Philip Seymour Hoffman negotiating for a role. If a deal can be worked out, Hoffman will be playing the rogue chief of a German spy unit who spends the film trying to piece together to mystery of this new stranger.
Generally, I think Hoffman works best when he’s playing a sloppy mess of a man dealing with emotional turmoil, so it will be interesting to see how he approaches the task of playing calm and collected German. And is he going to try for a goofy accent? So many questions! [Deadline Fairport]