The Courier (2021) - Starring Benedict Cumberbatch

[Darth Marcus]

Source: Deadline

Benedict Cumberbatch To Star As Cold War Spy Greville Wynne In FilmNation Thriller ‘Ironbark’ — Hot Cannes Pic
by Andreas Wiseman - May 3, 2018 7:54am

EXCLUSIVE: Benedict Cumberbatch is set to play Cold War spy Greville Wynne in hot Cannes package Ironbark, I can reveal.

FilmNation will finance and handle international sales on the pic, which is based on the true story of the British businessman who helped the CIA penetrate the Soviet nuclear program during the Cold War. Wynne and his Russian source, Oleg Penkovsky (codenamed Ironbark), provided crucial intelligence that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis. UTA packaged, negotiated the deal with FilmNation and handles U.S.

On Chesil Beach helmer Dominic Cooke will direct and executive produce with Cumberbatch (the duo previously collaborated on BBC drama series The Hollow Crown). The project, which is reminiscent in tone to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, is based on a spec script by Tom O’Connor (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) who will also exec produce.

42’s Ben Pugh and Rory Aitken (Sand Castle) will produce alongside Adam Ackland (Patrick Melrose), SunnyMarch and FilmNation. Also execing are Josh Varney (Netflix’s Watership Down) from 42 and Leah Clarke of SunnyMarch while Alison Cohen brokered the deal for FilmNation. The production is eyeing an early 2019 start of shoot with additional casting set to take place soon.

Wynne’s story is a remarkable one. He was an electrical engineer recruited to MI5 just before WWII and became an intermediary for high-ranking Soviet spy Penkovsky who was engaged in selling arms and weapons secrets to British intelligence. The two men became pally but when their activities were revealed by a double agent working for the KGB Wynne was arrested and imprisoned in Russia. Penkovsky, who was dubbed by the West as ‘the spy who saved the world’ for providing key intelligence around the Cuban Missile Crisis, wasn’t so lucky: he faced a firing squad (although in his book The Man From Odessa Wynne claimed that Penkovsky committed suicide in prison).

Wynne was released in exchange for the spy Gordon Lonsdale in 1964. In what could have been a scene from a John Le Carré’s novel, the two men are said to have walked past each other in the No Man’s Land dividing East and West Berlin in the early hours of the morning of April 22. Wynne would go on to write a series of exposé novels about his experience before passing in 1990 aged 70.

FilmNation, whose buzzy Cannes slate also includes 355, The Nest and Dolor Y Gloria, previously handled sales on Oscar-winner The Imitation Game which also starred Cumberbatch, that time as another unsung hero, code-breaker Alan Turing. London and LA production and management firm 42’s growing slate includes upcoming Netflix series Watership Down and features In Darkness and In The Shadow Of The Moon.

Glen Basner, CEO of FilmNation Entertainment told us, “We are delighted to be working with Benedict again and to have his abundant creativity on both sides of the camera. Dominic is a master director and he and Benedict’s work together on The Hollow Crown produced breathtaking results. We anticipate a very exciting second collaboration on Ironbark.”

Adam Ackland, Managing Director at SunnyMarch added, “We’re delighted to be working with Dominic Cooke, Tom O’Connor FilmNation and 42, bringing this thrilling and timely true story to the screen.”

Cumberbatch is currently in production on Showtime mini Patrick Melrose and is coming off a string of smash superhero movies including Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War.

[imsounoriginal]

Benedict Cumberbatch teases Sundance spy drama Ironbark: ‘It’s quiet heroics in a very loud world’

The 2020 Sundance Film Festival doesn’t kick off for another month, but with the recent announcement of the films headed to Park City in the new year, the buzz for the annual event is steadily building.

One of the starry titles that will make its debut at the indie fest is Dominic Cooke’s Ironbark, a spy drama based on a true story starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne, a salesman who was drawn into a high-stakes espionage operation during the Cold War. “This is a story of a very average hero,” Cumberbatch tells EW. “He was just a charming Welshman with the gift of the gab” — who ultimately played a critical role in bringing an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

An industrial goods salesman from a humble background (his “sort of strange Welsh accent,” which Cumberbatch describes as “kind of upper-class, and not quite upper-class enough,” presented a challenge for the actor to perfect), Wynne was taking his business further and further east when MI6 called upon him to be a messenger (in the exclusive image above, he’s pictured making a drop) for their Russian contact Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), with whom Wynne developed a deep friendship that would change the course of both men’s lives.

“He literally goes from being a rather charming businessman heading towards retirement, with a good sense of humor and a jolly manner, to being someone who is basically secreting Minox film cartridges about his case as he tos-and-fros to Moscow under the guise of being part of a British delegation of trade,” summarizes Cumberbatch, who also served as an executive producer on the film. “It’s a window into a world that’s not that far from our own, sadly, now, again, as far as how things heat up so quickly in politics and on the global stage,” he says of the story, which also serves as a reminder of the gravity of the Cuban Missile Crisis: “I think we forget how close we came to not existing anymore.”

The Doctor Strange star had previously been directed by Cooke in the BBC Two series The Hollow Crown as well as onstage in a production of Rhinoceros at the Royal Court Theatre. “He’s very much an actor’s director, as well as a brilliant stager,” says Cumberbatch. “I love his sensibility, and his take on character and relationship is key.” Once Cooke pitched Wynne’s extraordinary history for their next collaboration, the actor was on board.

But the shoot wasn’t without its challenges. In addition to mastering the accent, Cumberbatch also had to lose a great deal of weight in three months for just four scenes (rejecting suggestions that he Benjamin Button the rapid transformation) and a winter shoot in Prague, for which he had to be “semi-naked in real ex-prisons” that were well below freezing, made him terribly ill despite production’s efforts to keep him warm between takes. But the actor wouldn’t have had it any other way. “It’s nothing compared to what [Wynne] went through,” he says. “That’s the thing with these kinds of roles. People go, ‘Whoa, you did that?’ [But] you’re humbled by the reality, which is very far from what you have to do as an actor. And that helps you get there. That gives you all the motivation you need, frankly.”

He hopes that audiences, too, will be humbled and inspired by Wynne’s astonishing story, especially in our turbulent modern times. “It is possible for us to be ordinary people that are capable of doing extraordinary things when the time comes, when the questions are asked,” he says. “I think that’s what it is — it’s quiet heroics in a very loud world.”

Ironbark will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 24, 2020.

[imsounoriginal]

Picked up by Lionsgate.

[Darth Marcus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOPFVoW0BEg&ab_channel=ElevationPictures

[DonnieDon24]

This should have an iTunes redeem option correct?

[Don Corleone]

I redeemed the code on Lionsgate redeem..com. Didn’t see a choice for iTunes

[Ricky G]

Who has seen this?? I am really interested!

[lion23c]

Originally Posted by Ricky G

Who has seen this?? I am really interested!

it's a really good movie!

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by Ricky G

Who has seen this?? I am really interested!

Same, looking forward to seeing it. Kinda came and went with little fanfare.

[Don Corleone]

Was anyone able to confirm if an iTunes code actually exists

[The Debts]

I actually got a chance to catch this in a theater and quite liked it. Won't change the world or anything but it's well made and acted (especially nice seeing a movie Cumberbatch is allowed to use his native accent again). Plus I'm a sucker for this type of espionage cold war thriller type stuff.

[cgpublic]

...The Courier (2020), an archetypical cold-war thriller film for adults, features just enough talent to overcome the numerous cliches the genre has mined for decades. The cast, led by a top notch Cumberbatch in tandem with a terrific Merab Ninidze, is solid as one would expect. As also expected, the technicals especially the production and costume design are very strong, and the story as presented, while no Carré, is more than sufficiently engaging.

The Lionsgate film redeems in HD with options for Vudu, Google and Fandango, which is a shame, because it is also available digitally from iTunes in 4K HDR.

Overall, a surprisingly solid watch and related welcome recommendation, along with a minty slip:

[BluBonnet]

Does anyone know if Cumberbatch really lost all that weight for the prison scenes, or was it done with CGI? It's hard to believe he would have had time to go the old-fashioned route since he's on so many projects all over the place, including MCU stuff.

[Gacivory]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Does anyone know if Cumberbatch really lost all that weight for the prison scenes, or was it done with CGI? It's hard to believe he would have had time to go the old-fashioned route since he's on so many projects all over the place, including MCU stuff.

According to this interview. He did lose the weight.

https://hk.asiatatler.com/style/bene...ltre-interview

[BluBonnet]

Thanks!

[DNYFan1981]

My movie code gave me the option to redeem on iTunes. It redeemed in 4K!

[InsulinIV]

Yes there is definilty a 4k version of this

[truecineaste]

Bump! Does anyone own the Italian 4K? Does switching on the English subs translate the Russian dialogue? Or are there forced English subs when the English audio track is selected?