Jul 30 2009Spielberg Doing Spy Movie After All the Other Crap He Says He's Doing?

Steven Spielberg, director of an episode of Columbo and some other things, might be looking to add yet another project to his ever-growing list of films he'll never complete. Variety is reporting the director--who currently has an Oldboy remake, a film about gravity fields, his forever-talked-about Lincoln biopic, and the in-progress Tintin movie on his to-do list--is pondering taking on a film about fictional governnent spy Matt Helm:

Spielberg's camp said he is attached to produce, but it's unclear if he's going to direct. Clearly, Spielberg is excited about the project again after the rewrite that Paul Attanasio delivered last week.

"Matt Helm" is based on a series of 27 novels written by Donald Hamilton about a government agent whose mission is to take down enemy agents. While the novels were set in the post-WWII Cold War era, the current script is set in the present. While a series of tongue-in-cheek films were made with Dean Martin playing Helm as a playboy spy, the tone of Attanasio's script is closer to that of "The Bourne Identity."

If Spielberg ever does get to this, I wouldn't expect it would be before 2020. That should give him time for Oldboy, Interstellar, another Tintin, a fourth Jurassic Park, an E.T. sequel (E.T.: He's Home), and a decade of telling Liam Neson, "Look, I swear, you'll get to play Lincoln so soon--let me just finish up on Duel 2: Reduel."