Chris Pine & Michelle Williams in talks for spy thriller All the Old Knives

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

A new spy thriller is in the works and Variety reports that Michelle Williams (MANCHESTER BY THE SEA) and Chris Pine (HELL OR HIGH WATER) are currently in negotiations to take on the lead roles in ALL THE OLD KNIVES. James Marsh (THEORY OF EVERYTHING) is also in negotiations to direct the project whose script will be written by Olen Steinhauer, author of the novel of the same name.

ALL THE OLD KNIVES follows CIA spy Henry and ex-CIA spy Celia, former lovers who meet for dinner to reminisce. The pair relive their memories of "the disastrous hijacking of Royal Jordanian Flight 127, which ended in the death of all on board, a failure that haunts the CIA’s Vienna station to this day." Throughout the dinner there's an underlying question of whether Henry is seeking to rekindle the romance or get to the bottom of the conspiracy, and it soon becomes clear that one of them may not survive until the end of the meal. A little MY DINNER WITH ANDRE with a side of murder. I like it.

A synopsis of "All the Old Knives" via Amazon:

Six years ago in Vienna, terrorists took over a hundred hostages, and the rescue attempt went terribly wrong. The CIA's Vienna station gathered intel during those tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and from an agent on the inside. So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how?

Two of the CIA's case officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, were lovers at the time, and on the night of the hostage crisis Celia decided she'd had enough. She left the agency, married and had children, and now lives in idyllic Carmel-by-the-Sea. Henry is still a case officer in Vienna, and has traveled to California to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all. But neither of them can forget that long-ago question: Had their agent been compromised? If so, how? Each also wonders what role tonight's dinner companion might have played in the way the tragedy unfolded six years ago.

Both Michelle Williams and Chris Pine are coming off of very strong performances in MANCHESTER BY THE SEA and HELL OR HIGH WATER, and I for one am quite excited to see what they'll tackle next. Williams has Todd Haynes' WONDERSTRUCK on October 20, 1017 and THE GREATEST SHOWMAN with Hugh Jackman on December 25, 2017. As for Chris Pine, he has WONDER WOMAN on June 2, 2017 and Ava DuVernay's A WRINKLE IN TIME on March 9, 2018.