Tomas Alfredson, director of the sublime Let the Right One In, would like to talk to us all in English. Veddy, veddy good English, in fact. Upper class spy English. John le Carré English!
The director has signed on to helm a new version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, based on the classic John le Carré spyhunt novel. That book is the first in the so-called Karla trilogy, which sees longtime le Carré protagonist George Smiley first ferreting out a mole in MI6 and then going on to do battle with Karla, the Russian spymaster who is Smiley’s Moscow-based counterpart. I imagine this new version (there was a TV miniseries that starred Alec Guinness as Smiley) will be the jumping off point for a franchise of Smiley films, possibly the entire Karla trilogy.
The screenplay is being written by Peter Morgan, although I don’t know if he has finished it or if it is getting backburnered while he writes James Bond 23.
This sounds like a damned fine high end film in the making (and it’s coming from Working Title, so you know it’ll be at the very least quite good). I can’t wait to see who Alfredson finds to play Smiley, the secret agent coming out of retirement. Make your guesses on who would be a good Smiley on our message board.