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Just in case people are still mired in an earlier battle in European history… don’t want to confuse the Battle of Agincourt with, say the Peasant revolt in Flanders or something… 
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[Max and Hayao and the Boy and the Heron. - The Verge]
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I agree! Why object to Oldman? Politics?
Perhaps they have no worries about their dicks and it’s all (or partly) about money. A popular tv show with syndication can generate greater profits due to multiple revenue streams and extended runs. A reason for not doing a sequel (Oldman not mentioned), from the Radio Times via wiki:
In December 2021, Alfredson said that a film sequel to the 2011 film was unlikely; the rights having reverted to Le Carré’s estate, who were planning to reboot Smiley on television.
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Why did nobody think of a TV series before?
If they can get a cast like the film that would be amazing. Unfortunately that wouldn’t be possible and, an even bigger issue, with modern TV production they would butcher the pacing. It will either be truncated or elongated at several parts treading water and introducing multiple meaningless McGufffins to eke out empty parts of the plot to drag one series into two.
Have the Cornwells not watched television in the last decade?
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The Complete Smiley was really good.
You might be able to find it somewhere…
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If you’re round mine the DVDs of the TV series are abailable.
The radio dramas are available on Amazon (Audible), I assume they aren’t anywhere else then. I did check BBC sounds during the summer when I was listening to radio dramas.
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I agree. The solution is to produce a one-season mini-series. This approach would address your points and bring the much-awaited resolutions more quickly. I suspect the film sequel would have been based on Smiley’s People —what else could it be? If Le Carre’s sons were planning this for the TV series, they were beaten to the punch 42 years ago when the BBC aired their own Smiley’s People mini-series. It’s excellently acted, well-paced, and eminently re-watchable, with Alec Guinness delivering a stellar performance as George Smiley!
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I should have had a sarcasm tag for who would have thought of, not one but TWO mini series!
I was really talking about how Oldman escaped the very long shadow of Alec Guinness which was so large that le Carré said it overtook his own conception of Smiley. I got the impression he was a tiny bit annoyed about that! He tended to try and be a bit obscure on that kind of topic. I’m pretty sure he (rightly) hated Richard Burton’s turn on The Spy Who Came in From the Cold it’s absolutely wretched.
He was rightly effusive about Cyril Cusack’s (counter)turn as control in that which embodied the utter loathing for those who rose to the top of the old boy network that he had.
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Not having read TSHCIFTC, my experience with the work is based solely on the **film, with that perhaps explaining why I believe it to be a great spy film. It certainly captures the likely class of cynicism indigenous to spy agencies, the professional betrayals, and the ugly compromises.
** I understand that the tragic endings in both the book and the film align, but the film left me with the impression that it was “The Circus”—not the other side—that had Claire Bloom’s character killed. This wasn’t so much due to her Communist Party membership, but rather because her intimate relationship with Richard’s character made her a security risk. As for Leamas’s death, Control knew he was played out, “wretched,” pathologically cynical, and weakened—a security risk who couldn’t be left alive in East Germany, where he might be recaptured.
My belief is reinforced by the film showing the shooter driving the couple directly to the escape point, with Smiley on the other side of the wall at the same location. How did the shooter know the escape route? Smiley’s presence and his urging Leamas to save himself suggest that Control anticipated Leamas might, in disgust after witnessing Nan’s planned death, choose to forego his escape and risk recapture. Smiley, whether at Control’s behest or not, was there to ensure Leamas saved himself. Those are my thoughts on the film.
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I meant to post this a couple of days ago, to mark the passing of the immensely talented James Earl Jones.
While most short-form news obituaries spoke of him as “the voice of Darth Vader”, Jones was first and foremost a highly accomplished screen and stage actor.
Jones had made his Broadway debut twenty years before the Star Wars gig, and made his screen debut in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove”.
He would go on to achieve Emmy, Tony, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards over the course of a glittering, decades-long career.
I’ve posted a link below to the largely forgotten and criminally neglected 1987 film “Matewan”.
James Earl Jones gave what many consider to be one of his finest performances, playing “Few Clothes”, a Black veteran of the Spanish-American Wars caught-up in a conflict between striking Appalachian miners and Big Coal in 1920s West Virginia.
Historical dramas never get everything right - especially in American cinema - but this one (like Last of the Mohicans in 1992), does a remarkable job of getting to “the feel of things” at the time, at least insofar as I’ve been able to ascertain from reading various contemporary accounts.
Based on real-life events which took place in the town of Matewan in Mingo County, West Virginia in 1920.
As part of their attempts to stop coal miners from forming a labor union, the Stone Mountain Coal Company engaged in a campaign of harassment, intimidation, murder, and mass firings, while attempting to sow division among miners by hiring-in lower-paid workers from the Black and immigrant communities.
Labor organizers and striking miners were evicted from company-owned housing along with their families, and being left homeless, were forced to set-up a tent encampment on the outskirts of the company-owned town.
Intent on removing them entirely from company-owned land, the Stone Mountain Coal Company hired members of the thuggish Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to complete the mass evictions.
When the local mayor and sheriff took the side of the striking miners, a conflict was almost inevitable…
Written and directed by John Sayles.
Starring Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, Will Oldham, and the late James Earl Jones.
Haskell Wexler was nominated for an Academy Award for his cinematography work.
The entire movie:
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Pre-Alien work of HR Giger on display at Swiss museum
Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur:
https://kunstmuseum.gr.ch/en/ausstellungen/aktuell/Seiten/HR-Giger.aspx
Nothing will onebox properly, and I can’t cross-post in the Art & Artists thread because of the max 2 posts rule. I am disappointed.
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You can now. 
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Well, perhaps Slow Horses has benefitted from the move, as who knows if Mr, Oldman would have been bored of spy roles otherwise?
I too think the blocking of the movie has nothing to do with Gary Oldman, and everything to do with the dream of having a profitable series on Amazon Prime, Netflix or whoever throws the most money at them. Making a risky bet and all.
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I recall reading that Truffaut quote when Platoon came out, as Oliver Stone explicitly noted it was a challenge. And it does seem to meet the video essayist’s three criteria (the war wasn’t portrayed as just or heroic, it was based on Oliver Stone’s personal experience in Vietnam, and he tried to show the cost of war). Considering how much time he spent talking about Full Metal Jacket which came out a year later, it’s an interesting omission.
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I cannot improve on this recommendation:
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