On the eve of the Toronto International Film Festival, French director Olivier Assayas announced his new project, Wasp Network, as well as its cast. Already announced as a reteaming of Assayas with Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramirez, who led the director’s three-part miniseries Carlos back in 2010, Wasp Network will also star Academy Award-winning Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, the Golden Globe-winning Narcos star Wagner Moura, and Golden Globe winner Gael García Bernal. The film is an adaption of Fernando Morais’ book The Last Soldiers of the Cold War: The Story of the Cuban Five, which details the story of five Cuban spies jailed on “charges of espionage and murder” while infiltrating anti-Castro groups in the U.S. during the ’80s and ’90s. There’s no mention of which characters each actor will be playing.
Wasp Network sounds utterly amazing! The comparisons to Carlos are there and if this movie is even a quarter as great as that series it’ll be something to remember. Cruz and Ramirez worked together this year on the FX drama The Assassination of Gianni Versace so seeing them back together also intrigues. With this cast and Assayas’ direction, settle in for something good. And with so much talk about how Latinos are being portrayed (either terribly or otherwise) it’s great to see a predominately Latinx cast in a prestige project like this. Now if only we had an idea of when this was coming out.