More Ludlum Spying Headed To The Big Screen

Universal are in final negotiations with Brazilian helmer Jose Padhila, director of the highly acclaimed 'Elite Squad', to direct the 'The Sigma Protocol' the movie adaption of the Robert "Bourne" Ludlam spy thriller.

This one has been on the "to do" list for a while now and is one of two high profile Ludlum novels that are in the process of being made into movies.

The other is 'The Matarese Circle' which is not actually at a stuido yet but has Denzel Washington and David Cronenberg attached. Ludlum's name is best known to movie goers as the author of the Bourne books that the popular and lucrative Matt Damon starring movies are based on.

'The Sigma Protocol' was Luldum's last complete book, it's story is as follows, from the book jacket:

American investment banker Ben Hartman arrives in Zurich for a ski holiday, the first time he's been back to Switzerland since his twin brother died there in a tragic accident four years earlier. But his arrival triggers something far more sinister than his brother's fate. When Ben chances upon Jimmy Cavanaugh, an old college friend, Cavanaugh promptly pulls out a gun and tries to kill him. In a matter of minutes, several innocent bystanders are dead - as well as Cavanaugh - and Ben has barely managed to survive. Plunged into an unspeakable nightmare, Hartman suddenly finds himself on the run.

Department of Justice field agent Anna Navarro is being stalked around the world by a relentless killer, managing to survive the killer's attacks only by a combination of luck, skill, and her own quick wits. These attacks are somehow related to her current assignment: investigating the sudden - and seemingly unrelated - deaths of a number of very old men throughout the world. The only thing that connects them is a file in the CIA archives, over a half-century old, marked with the same puzzling code word: Sigma. But someone or something is always seemingly one step ahead of her, the survivors are rapidly dwindling, and her own life is in ever-increasing danger.

Brought together by accident, Ben and Anna soon realize that their only hope for survival lies with each other. Together they race to uncover the diabolical secrets long hidden behind the code word Sigma, secrets that threaten everything they think they know about themselves, everything they believed true about their friends and families, and everything they were ever taught about history itself. For behind Sigma lies a vast deception that is finally coming to fruition, and the fate and future of the world is in their hands.

I love the sound of this, very much my type of story and I hear good things about the book, hopefully it will be adapted to the screen a little closer to source than  the Bourne movies. Given how much money they have made it is not surprising Universal are looking for more Ludlum love and their choice of helmer suggests they are looking for the same "gritty" approach to Sigma, I hope we get the leads cast soon so this does not become another on a long list of projects that get announced and then disappear.