You know what former MI6 operative writes ridiculously great spy thrillers? John Le Carré. Did you know his real name is David John Moore Cornwell? Can you see why he’d change it to sound more spy-like? Of course you do. His seminal novel “The Spy Who Came In From the Cold” allowed him to start writing full time, stands as an icon of the genre, and was adapted into a wickedly good film starring Richard Burton. Now, another one of the author’s books will see the big screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anton Corbijn will live a bit longer in the world of secretive killers by directing A Most Wanted Man with a script from Edge of Darkness writer Andrew Bovell. Corbijn last directed George Clooney in The American, but unless Clooney can become a convincing Chechian Muslim man, it’s unlikely that he’ll star here. The story follows said Chechian Muslim, named Issa, who illegally enters Hamburg with a mysterious mission and falls under the eye of the German intelligence service. This pairing is fantastic, because even though there will be similarities in tone compared to other Corbijn films, the story sounds like something completely different. With one foot in the wheelhouse and another outside of it, he sounds like the perfect choice for the job. The book has received healthy praise since its publication in 2008, and you can watch a trailer for it here:

While reading this article, you may notice that Robert Ludlum titled all of his novels by staring with “The,” adding an enigmatic adjective like “Parsifal,” and ending it with a nonsensical noun like “mosaic.” You may also notice that Ron Howard will be directing a movie based off of “The Parsifal Mosaic.”