Pierce Brosnan talks Thomas Crown 2

It's been a couple of years since we heard anything at all about the mooted sequel to 1999's The Thomas Crown Affair. But Coming Soon recently grabbed the opportunity to quiz Pierce Brosnan about its progress, and discovered that the project is still doing the rounds. Like a circle in a spiral, or a wheel within a wheel. Or something.

"We've got the fourth script in and this is the closest we've gotten in structure to making sense," says Brosnan, somewhat alarmingly. "It's very, very hard."

He says the job now is to "flesh out" the characters of Crown, the billionaire who treats art thievery as an extreme sport, and a female lead that CS think is called "Ms Moore". Last we heard, the love interest was called Nadia Badri, so has this changed? Or is he talking about another character?*

Whatever, Brosnan says that the story involves "another affair, more art, and an unexpected surprise." The original intention was to make the film a rejig of Jules Dassin's 1964 heist caper Topkapi (to the extent that its original title was The Topkapi Affair) but Brosnan gave no hint of the extent to which this is still the case. Neither did he mention whether Paul Verhoeven is still interested in directing, as he was in 2007.

The project is still moving then, but certainly not arriving anytime soon. Much like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream, or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream. Like the circles that you find. Somewhere or other.

/Empire Online/