FilmFocus‘ Joe Utichi brings some news from former Bond-sman Pierce Brosnan, and it looks like the class-act actor will be bringing Eric Ambler’s novel "Light of Day" to the big screen. Adapted into the 1964 film "Topkapi," "Light of Day" will act as inspiration to "The Topkapi Affair," a rendition in which Mr. Brosnan will reprise his role from "The Thomas Crown Affair." (Got all that?)
"The film is based on a Thomas Crown-free book by Eric Ambler called "Light of Day," which was made into a 1964 film called simply "Topkapi" (released a few years before Steve McQueen‘s "The Thomas Crown Affair") starring Peter Ustinov. As Brosnan explained to FilmFocus, "MGM wanted us and pushed us – they were saying ‘Give us Thomas Crown.’ We were reluctant initially, but they told us to have a look at Topkapi."
And the set-up is very Thomas Crown; involving the complicated heist of a priceless diamond-encrusted dagger (that isn’t all it appears to be) from a real-lifer former Ottoman palace, Topkapi, in Istanbul, which is now a museum to the Ottoman Empire.
"We looked at Topkapi and found an angle in there for Thomas Crown," Brosnan told us, "So we have Harley Peyton working on it at the moment. We’re just nursing the script along at the moment. There’s a screenplay there, it just needs some tweaking and some work done to it to go back and find the voice."
Brosnan also revealed just how much of the original film, and indeed the novel it’s based on, would remain. "We’re using the diamond dagger, and we’re using that as a key into the story, really. That’s the Trojan horse again, but it’ll be much more Thomas Crown-oriented in structure.""
For more info on Mr. Brosnan’s upcoming features (including the very entertaining "The Matador"), check out the scoop over at FilmFocus.
