Depending on which “inside source” you ask, sadly, Richard Madden won’t be Daniel Craig’s successor in the James Bond franchise. The good news, however, is that we’re getting the next best thing (after BBC’s Bodyguard) with Amazon Prime Video’s new “wildly ambitious” spy series Citadel.
Madden takes to the small screen alongside career bombshell Priyanka Chopra Jonas in a cinematic effort executive produced by The Russo Brothers. And to be entirely honest, it looks as though it’s cut from the same cloth as the Avengers: Endgame directors’ most recent globetrotting flick starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans: The Grey Man (Netflix’s most expensive film to date).
Incidentally, Variety has indicated that Citadel wasn’t exactly made with pocket change, either, given its astounding US$185 million (AU$274 million) production budget. With season 1 comprised of six episodes, that’s roughly US$31 million (AU$46 million) a pop.
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“The show is meant to serve as the mothership for several planned spin-offs based in local countries and performed in local languages: Citadel series set in Italy and India are already underway, with another Mexico-based show also in the works,” reports Variety.
It’s a gigantic and expensive bet on an original concept that had remained, up until this month, shrouded in mystery.”
But enough of the BTS chat. What exactly are we actually in for?
The story follows Mason Kane (Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), former members of the titular independent spy agency which was apparently brought down by a crime syndicate known as Manticore. Eight years later, Mason and Nadia have no memory of their time as Citadel agents and lead anonymous lives as totally different people – that is until their old colleague Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci) recruits them once more.
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“The new personalities come in conflict with their old personalities,” Joe Russo explained during a recent press event.
“That was the idea that I think most excited us, because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that before, where you have multiple characters dealing with a crisis of personality and a crisis of conscience.”
Madden, Chopra Jonas, and Tucci are joined by Lesley Manville as Dahlia Archer, Osy Ikhile as Carter Spence, Ashleigh Cummings as Abby Conroy, Roland Møller as Anders Silje and Davik Silje (twin characters we assume), and Caoilinn Springall as Hendrix Conroy. The series has been created by Josh Appelbaum and Bryan Oh.
Amazon Prime Video’s Citadel starring Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas premieres with two action-packed instalments on April 28th of 2023 – check out the trailer above.
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