Anton Cobijn Catches Le Carre's “Most Wanted Man”

Coming off directing one of last year's better spy thrillers, "The American," Anton Corbijn is looking to get back into the espionage business.

Corbijn's next film will be an adaptation of John Le Carre's "A Most Wanted Man," according to The Hollywood Reporter. The book, which was published in 2008, it's set in Hamburg and tells the story of a suspected Muslim terrorist and the lawyer who tries to help him. Here's the synopsis from Le Carre's website:

A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat 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. Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, determines 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.

The book is based on the true story of Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen living in Germany, who was grabbed by U.S. authorities and taken to Guantanamo, where he was held without charge for several years before being released in 2006. It's being adapted for the screen by Andrew Bovell, who co-wrote "Edge of Darkness."

We loved "The American," which starred George Clooney as a hitman laying low in a small Italian town waiting to finish one last job before heading for retirement, so if Corbijn wants to keep telling stories like that, we're all for it.

Here's Le Carre talking about "A Most Wanted Man":

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