Some REAL James Bond Type Stuff!

Viewers eager to get an incisive overview of the various tools used by spies around the globe need look no further than tnt.tv, where they can watch SPY TOYS OF THE CIA, a 10-part broadband companion piece promoting TNT’s epic three-week television event THE COMPANY. Introduced by THE COMPANY star Chris O’Donnell (Scent of a Woman, Grey’s Anatomy), SPY TOYS OF THE CIA goes deep behind the scenes to see the making of and the uses for the tools of the espionage trade. The project, created by the digital production unit of Turner Entertainment Networks’ Content Creation Group, will be available on tnt.tv throughout the run of THE COMPANY, which begins Sunday, Aug. 5, at 8 p.m. (ET/PT).

Shot at various locations, including the Spy Museum in Austin, Texas, SPY TOYS OF THE CIA looks at the real-life gadgets used by spies in just about every imaginable situation. Some of these items are unusual and created for specific solutions, looking like something out of James Bond movie, while others are standard issue and can be used in a wide variety of situations. Some items are weapons, while others are used for surveillance or other clandestine activities. In addition to detailing the tools used by spies, this project features in-depth interviews, re-enactments and computer recreations.

TNT’s THE COMPANY is the story of the Cold War – its beginnings in the early 1950s, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Bay of Pigs fiasco in the 1960s and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – as told from the perspective of the soldiers involved: the spies of the CIA and the KGB. This epic three-week television event stars an international cast headed by O’Donnell, Alfred Molina (Frida, The Da Vinci Code, Spider-Man 2) and Michael Keaton (Live from Baghdad, Cars). It comes to TNT from Sony Pictures Television and acclaimed executive producers Ridley Scott (Gladiator), Tony Scott (Man on Fire) and John Calley (The Da Vinci Code), as well as co-executive producers David W. Zucker (Numb3rs) and David A. Rosemont (Into the West). The series will debut in August in two-hour installments over three consecutive Sundays, with the Sunday, Aug. 5, premiere being presented with limited commercial interruption by Ford and Quiznos.

Directed by Emmy® winner Mikael Salomon (Band of Brothers, TNT’s Salem’s Lot) and adapted by Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) from the best-selling historical novel by Robert Littell, THE COMPANY follows a game played over four decades, from the rainy streets of Berlin to the shores of Cuba, from secret revolutionary gatherings in Budapest to high-level meetings in the halls of Washington and Moscow. The chessboard is the entire globe, with pieces being moved and counter-moved carefully to try to gain advantage in the standoff between two super powers. In the end, the primary casualties were felt on the national and personal level by both willing participants and innocent bystanders.

Each night of THE COMPANY has a unique tone, with Night 1 presenting the early years of the CIA during the Cold War as a taut espionage thriller set mostly on the streets of East and West Berlin, where the cat-and-mouse games between the CIA and the KGB begin. Night 2 is an action thriller, with the primary focus placed on two violent and tragic events: the Hungarian uprising of 1956, which was quashed by massive Soviet involvement, and the Bay of Pigs, in which Cuban rebels attempted to oust Castro from power. And Night 3 is a complex psychological thriller, with the CIA desperately searching within its own ranks for a KGB mole who has been undermining CIA missions for decades.

[photo courtesy: TNT]