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Black Swan Scribe Mark Heyman To Write How To Catch A Russian Spy

Black Swan writer Mark Heyman has bagged scripting duties on upcoming adaptation, How To Catch A Russian Spy. The movie will be adapted from the forthcoming novel, How to Catch a Russian Spy: The True Story of an American Civilian Turned Double Agent by Naveed Jamali and Ellis Henican, which is slated to hit store shelves this June.

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Black Swan writer Mark Heyman has bagged scripting duties on upcoming adaptation, How To Catch A Russian Spy. The movie will be adapted from the forthcoming novel, How to Catch a Russian Spy: The True Story of an American Civilian Turned Double Agent by Naveed Jamali and Ellis Henican, which is slated to hit store shelves this June.

The true story book follows Jamali’s three-year experience as a double agent. During that period, he spied on America for the Russians and traded sensitive intel for great financial rewards, or so the Russians believed. In actual fact, Jamali was a covert double agent working with the FBI. It’s a gripping story that could have been yanked from a Robert Ludlum novel.

Fox procured the rights to the novel some time ago with a 2014 release initially on the calendar. (500) Days Of Summer‘s Marc Webb was – and still is – attached to direct. For whatever reason, the project idled in development until Heyman signed on to tap out the screenplay. His first post-Swan script, The Skeleton Twins, recently attracted a lot of attention and he’s since completed Facebook thriller XOXO that looks to be a taut cyber caper. It’ll be interesting to see how his first adaptation translates to the big screen.

Check out the Amazon synopsis for How To Catch A Russian Spy below and let us know – who do you think should play the lead?

How to Catch a Russian Spy is the one-of-a-kind story of how one young man’s post-college adventure became a real-life US counter-intelligence coup. He had no previous counter-espionage experience. Everything he knew about undercover work, he’d learned from Miami Vice and Magnum P.I. reruns and movies like Ronin, Spy Game, and anything with Bond or Bourne in the title. And yet, hoping to gain experience to become a Navy intelligence officer, he convinced the FBI and the Russians they could trust him.

With charm, cunning, and a big load of naiveté, he matched wits with a veteran Russian military-intelligence officer who was recruiting spies on American soil, out-maneuvering the Russian spy and his secret-hungry superiors. Along the way, Jamali and his FBI handlers cast a rare light on espionage activities at the Russian Mission to the United Nations in New York and earned a solid US win in the escalating hostilities between Moscow and Washington.