MGM launches James Bond spin-off

More than ten years after the abandoned Jinx movie, MGM has again concrete plans to launch a spin-off franchise with a character of the James Bond movies - this time quartermaster Major Boothroyd, code-named Q. The screenplay by Christopher Dagger, entitled THE Q FILES, already exists since several years and is considered as one of the hottest yet unrealized screenplays, among James Camerons Fantastic Voyage or Paul Verhoevens Crusade. But due to the uncertain legal situation of the charakter Blofeld it wasn't contempable until now.

Many details of the original screenplay by Dagger are already known, since it was online available for some time. It is an origin-trilogy describing Boothroyds missions in WWII and early Cold War years. A few classic Bond villains and allies appear as younger versions, among them Captain Miles Messervy or Rosa Klebb. The first of the three screenplays is entitled WIZARD OF ICE and takes place in the mid 1930s. The British secret service has received alarming informations by an unknown whistle-blower who calls himself TATAR. According to that the Germans are developing a disastrous bioweapon with the code-name Qappa. John Boothroyd, a Welsh university lecturer, is hired together with other scientists and technicians to find out the man behind TATAR - Operation Qappa. Boothroyd identifies the intermediary of TATAR, a young Polish chess and math genius named Tov Kronsteen. He is the eponymous Wizard of Ice and suggests a game of chess with the questioned informations as stake. Boothroyd wins the game with a technical fraud.

Bond producer Barbara Broccoli with Christopher Dagger 2012

The trail leads to German biologist Dr Hans Glaub. Glaub works in a castle near Kitzbuhel and abuses prisoners to test substances, among them pregnant women. At the end of the screenplay, Boothroyd can free many of them with the help of members of the Corsican Mafia, hiding in the mountains, among them a young Marc Ange Draco. But Hans Glaub can escape by taking a newborn baby hostage. John Boothroyd falls in love with Elisa, one of the freed women. They assists with the birth of Dracos daughter Theresa. (Hans Glaub appears as a very old man in A VIEW TO A KILL under the name Carl Mortner, the baby he took hostage is Max Zorin.)

In the second part, RISE OF A SPECTRE, Boothroyd finds out near the end of the war that the informations delivered by TATAR are false and the bioweapon is far from being operational. One of the nurses working for Glaub is Irma Bunt; she escaped with specimen of the unfinished weapon to Hamburg, where she meets the man behind TATAR in a quayside bar named Old Shatterhand. Boothroyd follows both, but finally loses their trace. He can inform the British government in the nick of time that the Germans have no bioweapon, only seconds before allied bombers can drop nukes over Hamburg and Berlin. The man turns out to be the young Pole Ernst Stavro Blofeld. He escapes with the name Shatterhand, accomplishes the Qappa-weapon later and calls it Omega.

In THE FINAL CURTAIN, Boothroyd tries to get Elisa out of the Soviet sector, where she is arrested. He leads Operation Gold, a British espionage tunnel under the east-west border in Berlin. Finally, Elisa gets exchanged for a Chinese nuclear scientist who offered military secrets to the west. The scientist gets tortured by the KGB as a result, they cut off his hands. But he can escape later and changes his name to Dr Julius No.

Robert Sean Leonard is young Major Boothroyd

Shooting the first part of THE Q FILES is scheduled to start this fall in the German studio Babelsberg as well as in Hamburg, Prague and in the Austrian castle Hohenwerfen. MGM wants to bring in to theaters in September 2014 for the 100th birthday of Desmond Llewellyn. A few names have already been dropped, first and foremost Robert Sean Leonard (Dead Poets Society, House) in the title role. A few German actors are apparently also aboard, such as Ulrich Tukur (The Life of Others) as Dr Hans Glaub and Johanna Wokalek (Pope Joan) as young Rosa Klebb. Edward Norton is rumoured to play Blofeld.

Subsequently, some informations about the rumoured cast!

British actor Joseph Mawle is young Tov Kronsteen, a Polish math wizard of ice.

Ulrich Tukur (The Life of Others) is Nazi scientist Dr Hans Glaub, who calls himself later Carl Mortner.

Josh Lucas is Secret Service commander John Strangways, who follows the trail of the disappeared Blofeld to the Carribbean. (He is killed in the beginning of DR. NO)

German actress Johanna Wokalek (Pope Joan) is young Rosa Klebb. The original screenplay by Chris Dagger describes her as a "fanatic Stalin groupie who kills traitors with poison darts out of her Mao bible". Wokalek played RAF terrorist Gudrun Ensslin in Der Baader Meinhof Komplex.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Dr Henry Bu. The nuclear scientist offers his services to the west, but gets exchanged and tortured by the KGB. Later he adopts the name Julius from his father and calls himself Dr No.

(The Hollywood Spectator)