Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Solidier Spy was a heady slow-burn British spy caper where what few accolades it did receive (among them, a Best Actor nod for Gary Oldman) felt like short shrift. An $83 million take wouldn’t seem to inspire much confidence in a sequel, but this excellent film is not without its fans. Good news for the converted, StudioCanal’s CEO confirmed to Screen Daily that a sequel, entitled Smiley’s People, is indeed in the cards:
“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.”
Fucking score. Spy began life as a 1974 novel in the first part of author John le Carré’s trilogy of George Smiley (Oldman in the film) books. Smiley’s People was actually the third novel in the series, as it appears the filmmakers at work will be skipping over The Honourable Schoolboy. People sees Smiley coming out of retirement to investigate the death of one of his proteges and engage in a battle of wits with the Soviets (sounds familiar).
The thought of Alfredson, the brilliant filmmaker also responsible for Let the Right One In, reengaging with the material and his original team of performers for a film of this sort is fabulous news. A look at the director’s body of work indicates he’s not one for sequelizing. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the film incorporate elements from both of the final books when it’s all said and done. Even so, this is a project we’ll be keeping a close eye so long as its proposed 2014 shoot remains on track.
8 comments
YES!!
No coverage of John Le Carre’s Our Kind of Traitor? Starring Ewan and Ralph Fiennes?
Nice. I hope they are able to get most of the cast back, especially Oldman and Cumberbatch.
Loved Tinker, Tailor…thought it would be good, but was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Out of sheer Greed I wish they’d find a way to do Honorable Schoolboy so we would have a trilogy of Oldman.
Tinker…was a great film, near perfect (sans CGI bird) but this is a bit of bittersweet news. I’d rather see Tomas take on something totally different.
The Tinker movie pales by comparison with the original cold-war era BBC production starring Sir Alex Guinness. And the Guinness version of Smiley’s People has to be the most unremittingly cerebral tour de force of that era. Brilliantly hard to follow, startling at every turn, and with Patrick Stewart as Karla you really can’t ask for better.
Available via TPB – highly recommended!
Got to chime in with Caractacus here – Oldman was very good, but Guiness and the BBC adaptation as a whole reeks of authenticity in a way no amount of 21C set dressing can. Plus the story benefits from being told in (near) unexpurgated form, not least because in essence it’s a desk bound procedural. Some of the short cuts were probably necessary to keep the film narrative buzzing along, but in places it felt rushed and off key. That said, Smiley’s People is a much less perfect and tightly wound story (in fact it borders on the ludicrous in places) so might lend itself to a film adaptation better.
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