John Le Carre continues to lure film producers who want to tap into intelligent espionage thrillers and wrestle with the challenge of adapting the author’s dense plotting into a streamlined, tight-knit motion picture. As casting continues on an adaptation of Le Carre’s Our Kind of Traitor, we’re hearing more about that possible Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy sequel that’s often been rumored.
More on Traitor in a moment. First, The Playlist caught up with Tinker executive producers Olivier Courson and Ron Halpern, who proclaimed:
We are working on Smiley’s People with Working Title. It’s still at the development stage - but, yes, the old team of Peter Straughan and Tomas Alfredson is back together. The same Tinker Tailor actors whose characters would reappear are well aware of what we’re doing. We’re hopeful for a 2014 shoot.”
Mind you, they said something similar back in December, but this is the first we’re hearing about a 2014 start to production. The idea of a Tinker sequel still has me scratching my head. The original only made $80 million at the worldwide box office. And in a day and age when Jack Reacher makes $100 million more than that yet can’t get a sequel, I’m left to wonder where the demand for Smiley’s People lies.
While you wait for People (if you are waiting for it), The Playlist adds that Mads Mikkelsen and Ralph Fiennes have joined Ewan McGregor in the cast of Traitor, which will be helmed by The Snowtown Murders director Justin Kurzel. That thriller – which casts McGregor as a Brit caught between warring Russian mobsters and British Secret Sercive agents -- is eyeing a 2014 release date.
