This Forgotten Pierce Brosnan Spy Thriller Is Climbing Charts Right Before His Big 2027 Comeback
Streaming platforms have a funny habit of digging up an actor’s overlooked mid-career work right when that actor’s name starts popping up in headlines again. It rarely has anything to do with the older film itself, and everything to do with timing, since curious viewers tend to go looking for an actor’s back catalog the moment new buzz starts building around them.
Pierce Brosnan is having exactly that kind of moment right now. Long removed from his James Bond years, the actor has quietly stacked up a busy stretch of upcoming work, including a return to the kind of grounded action thriller that made him a reliable post-Bond leading man in the first place.
Fittingly, one of those very thrillers is sitting on Paramount+’s top 10 movies chart this week. ‘The November Man’ currently holds down the number 9 spot, down three places from its previous ranking but still five days into its current run there, tucked among comedies like ‘Scary Movie’ and studio favorites like ‘The Hangover.’
The 2014 spy thriller cast Brosnan as Peter Devereaux, a highly trained ex-CIA agent lured out of quiet retirement to protect a valuable witness, only to find himself hunted by his own former protégé. Directed by Roger Donaldson and co-starring Olga Kurylenko and Luke Bracey, the film was loosely adapted from Bill Granger’s “November Man” book series, though it landed with critics at a modest 36 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
There is a fun bit of trivia buried in its history too. Brosnan announced a planned sequel live on “The Tonight Show” before the first film had even opened in theaters, with the studio confirming it was already moving toward pre-production on a follow-up. That sequel never actually materialized, leaving Devereaux’s story as a one-and-done entry despite the early confidence.
Brosnan’s actual return to physical, high-stakes action is happening elsewhere. He stars as Ray Cooper, a veteran mountaineer running a luxury chalet in the Dolomites, in the upcoming ‘Cliffhanger’ reboot alongside Lily James, whose character must survive both the terrain and a group of kidnappers after a weekend excursion turns violent. The film has bounced between distributors amid financial trouble at its original backer, eventually landing at Vertical for a planned Spring 2027 theatrical release.
He has also joined Chris Hemsworth’s ‘Extraction 3’, keeping his name attached to the kind of globe-trotting action projects that first made ‘The November Man’ feel like a natural fit for him a decade ago. Between that and the long, bumpy road to getting ‘Cliffhanger’ into theaters, there has been no shortage of reasons for his name to resurface in entertainment coverage this year.
None of that guarantees ‘The November Man’ climbs back up Paramount+’s chart rather than sliding further down it. But its presence there right now lines up neatly with an actor quietly building toward a genuinely busy 2027, giving old fans a reason to revisit one of his lesser-remembered outings while they wait.
