Michael Fassbender will produce and star in the Lionsgate spy thriller “Malko,” based on Gerard de Villiers’ S.A.S. series, with the studio planning to launch a franchise with the project...
!!!NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS!!!
(...) The S.A.S. franchise follows Malko Linge, an Austrian nobleman and freelance CIA operative who spent his formative years in a special Nazi work camp for captured spies. Malko is a gentleman warrior without a country who works according to his own moral code and lives with a wicked wit and a lust for life.
The first film will largely be based upon de Villier’s book “Checkpoint Charlie.” Lionsgate secured the film rights to the catalogue of S.A.S. based stories from Black Magic’s Lars Sylvest, who developed the property with de Villiers and Thorsten Schumacher. (...)
Lionsgate has acquired the global motion picture rights to Gerard de Villiers’ best-selling action-spy series S.A.S. which it’s adapting into Malko, a project that Michael Fassbender will star and produce. Oscar nominated screenwriter Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle, upcoming Top Gun: Maverick) will write the screenplay.
With the deal, Lionsgate has secured the full rights to de Villier’s catalogue of best selling espionage thrillers, serialized through 200 books that have been translated into multiple languages and sold north of 120M copies worldwide. Lionsgate secured the film rights to the catalogue of S.A.S. based stories from Black Magic’s Lars Sylvest who developed the property with Gérard de Villiers and Thorsten Schumacher. The project will be produced together with Rocket Science.
Fassbender will play the super spy for hire Malko Linge, an Austrian nobleman and freelance CIA operative who spent his formative years in a special Nazi work camp for captured spies. Malko learned the intricate dark arts of tradecraft from the best. Now, an adult living in a reclaimed family manor fallen into disrepair, Malko becomes a spy for hire. He is the ultimate agent without an agency – a gentleman warrior without a country who works according to his own moral code and lives the only way a man who has grown up in the face of death can: with a wicked wit and a lust for all things in life, even the things that might kill him. The first film will largely be based upon de Villier’s book Checkpoint Charlie.
“We are enormously excited to be teaming with Greg Shapiro and Michael Fassbender as well as Lars Sylvest from Black Magic and Thorsten Schumacher from Rocket Science to develop Malko,” said Drake. “This is a character with a tremendous 200 title library of amazing spy stories to draw from and we believe we have a world-class creative team in place with Michael and Eric Warren Singer as we move forward on this project.”
In addition to Fassbender, who is producing through his DMC Film production company, producers include Black Magic’s Lars Sylvest, Kingsgate Films’ Greg Shapiro, and Rocket Science’s Thorsten Schumacher. Serving as executive producers are Singer, and Jason Clark, DMC’s Conor McCaughan. At Lionsgate, the project will be overseen by Senior Vice President of Production James Myers and Director of Development Brady Fujikawa.
watching strike back on hbo. and it feels like every damn episode has a new person from got in it. seriously. what is up. did hbo just resycle all their british actors and put them in got.
I was always wondering what book Michael was holding in his hand in those paparazzi pics from New York (December 2018).
Scrolling through the old paperback covers of the Malko books (I’m still trying to figure out which one to get first and if there’s all available ‘cause there like literally 200 of them *sighs*), I found this one, which looks like the one he’s holding in the pics:
Apparently, he was reading a Malko book by Gérard de Villiers: No.4 - Malko versus the CIA, like he was reading Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole books to prepare for The Snowman.
This is not the one the movie will be based on, however. In the online articles it says the movie will be based on No.9 - Checkpoint Charlie which plays in Berlin (the question is, though, will it be set in the same time or will they put it in the present?).
Thoughts?
Are any of you guys going to read those books for comparison or will you rather let the movie surprise you?
