With Jason Bourne seemingly stuck behind bars in movie development prison, James Bond out of pocket and Jack Ryan inching his way back to the screen, someone had to fill the action spy void. Rumour has it that Universal is betting Bourne creator Robert Ludlum’s novel series Covert One could boast the team to make that happen, and veteran producer/director Frank Marshall might just be the man to get it to cinemas.
Covert One is a series of books that Ludlum launched in 2000, and has carried on since his death in 2001. Every novel in the series is a collaboration with another writer, including Patrick Larkin and Gayle Lynds. The plots follow a top-secret US agency who battle corruption and conspiracy at the highest levels of society.
And while Marshall is usually to be found producing rather than directing these days (he’s currently working on The Last Airbender with M Night Shyamalan) and is a long time Steven Spielberg friend/collaborator, he’s picked up the megaphone for movies such as Congo, Arachnophobia and Alive. He’s also been involved with the Bourne films, so he knows who to wrangle together a spy franchise. Which is what Universal is hoping the first Covert One movie might birth, unsurprisingly.
While this has yet to be announced officially or confirmed by the man himself (who posts regularly to Twitter as @LeDoctor, Pajiba’s usually reliable source The Hollywood Cog is reporting that Marshall will sit back down in the director’s chair for the first time since Eight Below, assuming his planned Lance Armstrong project doesn’t get to the production track first.