Rowan Joffe’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock is currently playing in cinemas across the country and there is news tonight of his next feature film project.
Back in 2007 it was announced that Tom Hanks’ production company Playtone had begun developing the story of Eddie Chapman, better known to the world as Agent Zigzag, a double agent trained by the Nazis who began to work against Germany in 1942. There is plenty of espionage, betrayal, adventure and seduction in his story, thus it was almost certain that the book by Ben MacIntyre entitled Agent Zigzag: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy would be picked up. Joffe has been unveiled by Deadline as the man to bring Chapman’s story to the screen.
Mike Newell, recently announced as developing an adaptation of Great Expectations, is set to direct the film and this is not a million miles away from another project Newell was linked to almost exactly a year ago when The Terminal Spy, the story of the mysterious death of former KGB man Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, was being developed by Warner Bros.
Here’s how Ben MacIntyre’s book was advertised in 2007, perhaps when Tom Hardy is done with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy he might be the man Newell and Joffe look to?
