In 2019, the New York Times ranked The Legends Office in the best foreign series of the decade. But Guillaume Debailly, Marina Loiseau and Henri Duflot sounded a little too French to be able to definitively conquer the American public. American studios have therefore seized on the phenomenon to make a product more suited to local culture. And this American-style version will soon land on Canal+, as the channel has just announced in a press release, without specifying the broadcast date.
A star cast
This successful series followed in the footsteps of these French agents undercover abroad – the famous “legends”, careful false identities – around a central character, Malotru, played by Mathieu Kassovitz.
In the US version, it’s Michael Fassbender (Shamethe franchise X-Men) who plays Martian (“Martian” in English), a CIA agent who must leave his life undercover and return to the London office. When the woman he loved in his other life reappears, “his career, his true identity and his mission are threatened,” describes Canal+ in a press release.
Richard Gere plays the head of the CIA’s London office, a former field agent with a troubled past, according to information published in the American press. The American series, which will have ten 52-minute episodes, features George Clooney and Michael Fassbender among its producers.
The first two episodes are directed by Joe Wright, who previously worked for the series Black mirror. The screenplay goes to brothers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, credited on the big screen for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Jacques Audiard at the helm
The original flagship series from Canal+ was sold in more than 100 countries and praised for its realism by the DGSE, the French intelligence services, where the characters evolve. Director Éric Rochant has been the “showrunner” (author-producer, in series jargon) since the first broadcast in 2015. Before, for the finale of the 5th and final season in 2020, handing over to Jacques Audiard, director of A prophet and of Emilia Perez for the final episodes.
In France, the series is so popular that it gave rise to an escape game and even an exhibition at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie to introduce people to the profession of secret agent.
