Just a couple of days ago, word arrived that Steven Spielberg was looking to add yet another directorial assignment to his overflowing potential projects pile. Guess what? He’s found another one, with the news that he’s considering an untitled Cold War thriller that would reunite him with Tom Hanks.
Spielberg, of course, directed Hanks on Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can and **The Terminal **as well as collaborating with him behind the scenes on World War II TV dramas Band Of Brothers and The Pacific. The new film finds writer Matt Charman adapting a script from the true-life tale of James Donovan. Hanks would play the prominent American lawyer, who was enlisted by the CIA at the frosty height of the Cold War to venture beyond the Iron Curtain and negotiate the release of a U-2 spy plane bomber pilot shot down over Russia.
DreamWorks has the rights to the script and Hanks is on board, though he hasn’t formally committed to star. He may decide based on Spielberg’s interest, which is already split between the likes of Robopocalypse (which he’s been putting through the re-write machine), historical drama Montezuma and** The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara**, which boasts another of his regular collaborators, Tony Kushner, on script duty. Whichever screenplay among these suitors Spielberg will make next remains to be seen, but it appears he’s close to making a decision.
Hanks, meanwhile, will next appear in A Hologram For The King, which is shooting now.