For years and years people on the internet have been clamoring to get Idris Elba one of the most coveted jobs in the business: James Bond. It hasn’t worked, and it almost certainly will never work, despite everyone’s best efforts. But here’s some news that may make things a touch better: As per Entertainment Weekly, the acclaimed actor has signed on to produce and star in a romantic spy thriller for Apple.
The film, which has no title and no plot beyond “romantic spy thriller,” will be produced alongside Simon Kinberg, one of Hollywood’s busiest scribes, who made his directorial debut last year with the woebegone X-Men entry Dark Phoenix. But Kinberg also wrote, among others, 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, itself a “romantic spy thriller,” and a very original one. So perhaps Elba will get something that’s at least more fun and sexy than your typical 007 romp.
Apple has been edging into the film business bit by bit, funding projects like the Will Smith thriller Emancipation, the recent Tom Hanks WWII saga Greyhound, and even giving Martin Scorsese the hefty budget he needs to make his next historical epic Killers of the Flower Moon, after numerous studios didn’t want to give Martin Scorsese money to make a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. So good for them.
(Via EW)