July 19, 2017
Though the
Russian president may be off-limits thanks to hacking concerns, Russia-themed
thrillers (including 'Red Sparrow,' starring Jennifer Lawrence as a spy) are
white hot as a new red dawn rises in Hollywood.
Hollywood isn't
ready to give screen time to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who's been
excised from two upcoming studio features.
Fox's Red
Sparrow (March 2) tells the story of a Russian spy (Jennifer Lawrence)
wooed by the CIA to be a double agent. It's based on former CIA officer Jason
Matthews' novel, which drew raves for its insights into current spy craft. When
Fox exec Emma Watts optioned the book in 2013, she shifted the story from
modern-day Russia to 1970s Budapest, nominally to give it a more
"timeless" feel — and though Putin has a key role in the book, he was
dropped.
Then, after
Frances Lawrence came aboard as director, Watts shifted the story back to the
present day. As Red Sparrow raced toward a January production start in
total secrecy (including encrypted scripts that generate a user audit log), the
studio "has been scrambling to reflect what is playing out 24/7 in the
news," says a production source.
Despite the
explosion of interest in the Kremlin following the U.S. election, Putin's
character was not restored. Insiders describe the moves as "creative
choices," but by avoiding Putin, Fox also is steering clear of any Russian
hackers who might protest.
Additionally,
Putin is missing from EuropaCorp's upcoming Kursk, the true story of a
Russian submarine that sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea in 2000, even
though he appears in the source material, Robert Moore's best-seller A Time
to Die, and was in early versions of the screenplay.
"For a
studio to release a movie about Putin that makes him look like a fool would be
suicide," says Ajay Arora, CEO of security firm Vera, which works with
studios. "That's a certain way to be targeted [for retaliation]."
Though Putin may
be off-limits thanks to hacking concerns, the film industry is finding the
Russia theme too irresistible to ignore altogether. From studios looking to
incorporate the current Kremlin obsession into plotlines to writers taking
secret meetings with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev about potential
projects, there's a new Red Dawn rising in Hollywood.
"We've seen
a lot of projects where Russians are portrayed as villains, but I don't think
this is '80s redux," says Grandview Management's Jeff Silver, who reps
several clients involved in projects that either take place in Russia or have
Russians featured prominently. "The political climate is so much more
fluid, nuanced and chaotic, and good screenplays and stories are reflecting
that."
Grandview manages
Charles Cumming and Arash Amel, who each penned drafts of The Tracking of a
Russian Spy, which StudioCanal is prepping for a January start date. That
film (not to be confused with Marc Webb's How to Catch a Russian Spy at
Fox, with Oscar winner Michael Sugar producing) will tackle the au courant
issue of fake news and disinformation campaigns, with Logan Lerman starring as
a journalist who travels to Moscow and becomes a useful tool of the Kremlin.
Silver says the
Russian subgenre is so hot right now that Grandview even had a writer whom he
could not name due to a nondisclosure agreement travel to Moscow to visit
Gorbachev to discuss a film on his life. Another manager with a high-profile
client says, "Everything will be Russia for the next four years."
It's a path
already well-worn. For many decades, Hollywood took aim at the Communist
superpower with such films as Norman Jewison's comedy The Russians Are
Coming! The Russians Are Coming! and John Milius' Red Dawn. But by
the time MGM was developing its 2012 Red Dawn remake, the studio
replaced Russia with China as the invading nemesis, only to change the villains
to North Koreans in postproduction in an effort to appease China.
But Russian
adversaries are back and will be featured in a number of forthcoming sequels. Wonder
Woman will travel back in time to fight the Soviets in the Cold War for
Warner Bros.' second outing. Despite being the victim of Hollywood's most
devastating hack ever, Sony will wade into the territory in The Girl in the
Spider's Web, in which the character of Lisbeth Salander becomes involved
in Russian hacker intrigue. And Sylvester Stallone recently hinted that the
next Rocky spin-off will return to a Russian antagonist (1984's Rocky IV,
perhaps the best example of Cold War agitprop from a U.S. studio, saw Russian
villain Ivan Drago kill Apollo Creed in the ring) for Creed II. MGM
declined comment on the direction of the next saga.
But while
Hollywood is willing to feed the public's hunger for all things Russia, studios
will likely continue to play it safe when it comes to depicting the current
leadership. After all, even Oliver Stone, who directed the pro-Russia
documentary series The Putin Interviews, left the president out of last
year's Snowden.
Tatiana Siegel
