About that M:I Rogue Nation air stunt…

An official video has been posted to YouTube about the signature air stunt in Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation.

This has been featured since the first teaser trailer. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) appears to be hanging on the side of an airplane, desperately trying to get in. The video posted today is a behind-the-scenes look at how it was filmed.

Cavill, Hammer describe Solo & Kuryakin’s background

Actors Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer provided a look at the backgrounds of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin during one of their many interviews at the San Diego Comic Con.

It was already known that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie coming out next month gave Solo a new back story of having been an art thief before joining the CIA. Here, Cavill provides additional details.

Meanwhile, Hammer tells new details about Kuryakin’s Russian background. It’s realistic (or at least semi-realistic) given the realities of the Soviet era.

Needless to say this is a spoiler. So if you want to find out, watch the video below. You won’t have to wait long for the details.

Our Thunderball script posts in one article

Thunderball poster in 1965

We’ve revised and slightly expanded three recent posts on Thunderball scripts into one feature article called THE EVOLUTION OF THUNDERBALL.

The article is taken from three posts, one in June, the other two from the past few days. They examine Jack Whittingham’s 1960 first draft for Kevin McClory; Richard Maibaum’s 1961 first draft when Eon Productions planned to begin its 007 series with Thunderball; and the 1965 Maibaum-John Hopkins script.

The longer feature story is housed at THE SPY COMMAND FEATURE STORY INDEX.

That sister site to this blog has longer feature stories, some of which are expanded from blog posts and others that were published at the former Her Majesty’s Secret Servant website.

Examples include a LOOK AT IAN FLEMING’S MANUSCRIPTS AND PERSONAL PAPERS AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY and a feature about how the papers of Maibaum and Norman Felton, the executive producer of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., are housed at THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.

To view the complete Evolution of Thunderball article, CLICK HERE.

U.N.C.L.E. movie’s digital exposure soars during Comic Con

U.N.C.L.E. movie poster

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie’s exposure on digital media surged more than 14 times during the four days of the San Diego Comic Con, according to a chart ACCOMPANYING A VARIETY STORY.

The story concerned information gathered by ListenFirst Media about what films and television shows got the most exposure during the comic book convention, which has become a major summer marketing exercise for studios.

The ListenFirst data includes “activity across a combination of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Wikipedia, and YouTube,” according to Variety. The U.N.C.L.E. movie’s “digital audience ratings” (or DAR) went from 63,799 on July 5-8 (the four days before the convention) to 925,417 during July 9-12, a 1,350 percent jump, according to the ListenFirst data in the Variety chart. U.N.C.L.E. was No. 4 in DAR for films during the convention.

On Saturday, the movie’s stars — Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander and Elizabeth Debicki — promoted the film during a convention panel. Warner Bros. also posted a new five-minute trailer online in connection with the convention. The trailer had received more than 800,000 viewings on YouTube by Monday afternoon.

To be sure, U.N.C.L.E. did not crack ListenFirst’s top ten for movies and television shows combined. The No. 1 in the combined category was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, also a Warner Bros. release and also with Henry Cavill.

That movie’s DAR during the convention was 18.4 million, a whopping 4,185 percent increase over the four days before the con. Warners released its first regular trailer for the superhero movie, which comes out in March 2016. That trailer has received more than 20 million viewings on YouTube.

Also, in the movie category, U.N.C.L.E. was a distant No. 4. Besides the Batman v Superman ratings, the No. 2 film was Star Wars: The Force Awakens (6.55 million) and No. 3 was The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (3 million).

Still, the digital ratings may be a sign that U.N.C.L.E. — last seen in the 1983 TV movie The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. — may be making a comeback of sorts.

Warners originally scheduled the movie to open in mid-January, not a prime time for movie releases. But the studio shifted the film’s release date to Aug. 14 following test screenings in the summer of 2014.