Mann enters Litvinenko fray

Both Michael Mann and Johnny Depp have films about the former KGB spy in development.

Jan 15 2007

Hot on the heels of Johnny Depp's proposed film about the murder of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, Michael Mann has announced plans of his own to tell the story.

The 'Miami Vice' helmer will direct an espionage thriller about Litvinenko's poisoning, based on Alexander Goldfarb's forthcoming book 'Death of a Dissident'.

Columbia Pictures will produce the flick, and describe it as 'a wide-ranging espionage thriller, (exploring) the collision between the deep-rooted Russian power structure - enforced by the KGB and its successor, the FSB - and the new wave of wild west capitalism that came on the heels of glasnost. The film will capture the ways in which Litvinenko was caught between those two colossal forces'.

So it's now a race against time to see which one makes it to the big screen first – more news as and when it breaks.

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