Casting News for Film Adaptation of A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré

The critical and commercial success of the recent film adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has led to studio interest in developing other works by the author. Today we're learning that Philip Seymour Hoffman may star in an adaptation of the 2008 spy thriller A Most Wanted Man. Anton Corbijn (The American) will direct a screenplay by Andrew Bovell (Edge of Darkness).

Hoffman is expected to play the role of Günther Bachmann, a German intelligence officer watching over a "triangle of impossible loves". One of these is a half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat, who is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse round his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa.

Another is Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, determined to save Issa from deportation. Soon her client's survival becomes more important to her than her own career. In pursuit of Issa's mysterious past, she confronts the incongruous Tommy Brue, the sixty-year-old scion of Brue Frères, a failing British bank based in Hamburg.

Production on the film will begin in Hamburg this September. Watch a trailer for the book from its UK publisher, narrated by the author, below.

(Related article: Variety.)