While walking through Barnes & Nobles yesterday, I nearly picked up a Robert Ludlum book. But I hesitated since I’ve already seen the Bourne movies and I assumed, as is so often the case with movie adapted writers, that his other books probably weren’t as good. Not so says The Hollywood Reporter. Another, Bourne-free Ludlum book has been snatched up by Universal to be made into a feature film.
The book is The Sigma Protocol, which fits rather nicely into the established Ludlum naming rhythm established by his other book titles like The Bourne Identity or The Bourne Ultimatum. It sounds like the standard title for every science fiction book written during the sixties, but in fact it isn’t. Instead, it’s the story of a economist being hunted by assassins. Picture Alan Greenspan starring as James Bond and you’ll get a really funny picture that’s probably nothing like this movie. In the movies, economists are all a lot like Ben Affleck. When a fem U.S. intelligence agent gets involved in the case and starts running into similar death problems, she ends up on the run with action Alan Greenspan.
There’s no script for the project yet, but Universal has hired Jonathan Jakubowicz, a guy whose name is probably pronounced nothing like you’d expect, to adapt a script and then direct it. Mr. Jakubowicz is known as the mind behind the biggest box office smash in Venezuelan history, Secuestro Express. Drug cartels and llamas like movies too.
