Anthony Hopkins (known by many from his memorable role as serial killer Hannibal Lechter) will star in The Rite, a supernatural thriller adapted from the book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, by Matt Baglio. No other cast announced just yet, but Mikael Hafstrom will direct.
Post production has been completed on the film adaption of Ken Bruen's Novel The Guards, by Magma Productions. Filmed in Galway, it features Bruen's protagonist, Jack Taylor, an ex-cop(played by Iain Glen) who drinks too much and operates in the city as a private eye.
Will Smith may be teaming up with Paramount Pictures to produce a new film version of Suspicion, the 1941 classic by Alfred Hitchcock "about a shy Englishwoman who marries a dashing gentleman, then begins to suspect that he's trying to kill her for her money." The original was based on the book Before the Fact by Frances Iles.TV
The TV pilots being created as potential schedule fillers for the fall season are coming so fast and furious, it's hard to keep up. Fortunately, The Hollywood Reporter has made it a little easier for you, with their scoresheet, which includes 22 (!) cop dramas.
One of the most recently-announced TV crime dramas that made it from pilot to a series is Sugarloaf on A&E. It stars Jim Longworth as an attractive, brilliant, and disgraced former Chicago homicide detective who relocated to Sugarloaf, a sleepy small resort town on the Gulf Coast of Florida and joins the state police.
Fans of the original Rockford Files P.I. series from the 1970s are having mixed reactions to the news that a remake is in the works. Now that the star has been announced, Dermot Mulroney (originally portrayed by James Garner), the discussion can begin in earnest.PBS airs its remake of the 39 Steps this Sunday night, and they also just announced an updated 21st century version of Sherlock Holmes, with Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement) and Martin Freeman (from the UK version of The Office) in the lead roles of Holmes and Watson.
Adam Rodriguez is returning to CSI: Miami in the role of Eric Delko, after not being in the cast last year due to a contract dispute.
NBC is postponing its remake of Prime Suspect, the series originally broadcast on PBS starring Helen Mirren. Apparently Mirren is too hard an act to follow: the officially-stated reason for the postponement is that producers can't find an appropriate female lead. Considering the recent invasion of Aussie actors in American TV shows, perhaps they should start looking downunder.
Johnny Depp is making a rare TV appearance, albeit in the new magazine 48 Hours, about the "West Memphis Three," a trio of teenagers convicted of killing three boys, whom Depp believes are innocent.WEB/AUDIO
Director Fred Greenhalgh of FinalRune Productions is producing an radio drama version of Vermont author Archer Mayor's first mystery novel, Open Season. The inspiration for Open Season came from Martin Cohn, a public relations man who approached Mayor about adapting one of his 20 Joe Gunther mysteries set in Vermont into an audio drama. It's much cheaper than a movie, for sure: the script, the theater, the actors, the sound man and the lasagna are costing Cohn and Mayor $1,500.
The Bat Segundo radio show online recently featured Sue Grafton where she discusses her writing and moral issues, e.g., "One thing I’m fascinated by, at this pace in my career, is gray areas. Black and white and evil, while repellent, are not as representative of the public at large. Many people, I think, cross the line. That’s always a question to me. What makes people cross the line?"
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