Having written Traffic, Stephen Gaghan has now been tapped to pen the adaptation of Jon Stock’s espionage novel Dead Spy Running.

In development at Warner Bros, the film is being planned as the first in a trilogy, which aims to reinvent the spy genre. It will tell the origin story of a newly trained spy which mixes Robert Ludlum’s grittiness with John Le Carre’s wit.

McG is attached to the project. The first film will focus on the protagonist running the London Marathon where a fellow racer is strapped with explosives. It will continue with a globe-trotting adventure to clear the name of the man’s father.