Simon Beaufoy To Adapt Those Len Deighton Novels Quentin Tarantino Once Wanted To Tackle

Remember a few weeks ago when we broke down the various projects Quentin Tarantino has flirted with in the past? Well, you can take one of them off the list of possible future endeavours, as a British television production company has beaten Tarantino to the punch.

Behind the Brit hit series “Misfits” and co-founded by John Hannah (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “The Mummy”), Clerkenwell Films has signed “Slumdog Millionaire” scribe Simon Beaufoy to pen a television adaptation of Len Deighton’s trilogy about the Cold War exploits of British spy Bernard Samson. Beaufoy said, “It is all here: murders, honey-traps and spy swaps, the double-dealing and maneuvering of nations jousting for position at the height of the Cold War, with Bernard Samson, the Bond with brains, giving it an almost Chandleresque sense of cool.” 

It also has a Tarantino-esque sense of cool that we’re sure first attracted him to the books. But after “Jackie Brown,” Tarantino vowed to only direct projects that came from his pen, so this was likely not gonna happen on his watch anyway. But it certainly does speak to the potential of the material that it grabbed his notice at all

As for now, the iconic spy novels look like they are in very capable hands. Clerkenwell Films has experience in producing quality literary adaptations (“Jekyll and Hyde” in 2002, “Persuasion” in 2007) and Beaufoy won an Oscar and BAFTA for his “Slumdog Millionaire” adapted screenplay. Be on the lookout for more casting news as Clerkenwell Film chief executive Murray Ferguson said, “Set in London, Berlin, America and around the world, we will be casting from the premier league of international talent.” 

So for you literary types, who should play Bernard Samson? [THR]