Liam Neeson is in thriller mode. After a recent spate of thriller movies, he's also currently in negotiations (replacing fellow A-Team cast member Bradley Cooper) to star in The Grey, directed by Joe Carnahan. Liam's character leads an oil drilling team who survive a plane crash in Alaska, and must struggle to survive in the wilderness, including a pack of hungry wolves.
Don't feel sorry for Bradley Cooper, as he has plenty of other projects in the pipeline, including a yet-to-be-titled action buddy-cop comedy playing one of two San Francisco cops and friends whose fathers were once partners on the force. The story hinges on the a case requiring the pair to bring their fathers out of retirement.
TV
TV producers McG (Chuck, Nikita) and Paul Scheuring (Prison Break) are developing a private investigator series for ABC called I, PI, ablut an investigator who learned everything he ever needed to know about the job from watching shows like Magnum, P.I. and Simon and Simon.
Director Sam Raimi (of Spiderman fame) has sold a script for the drama pilot Lancaster about a Scotland Yard police officer who joins the LAPD. The screenwriter, Andrew Lipsitz, has worked on CSI and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
New on DVD is the short-lived TV series from Boris Karloff from 1960 titled Thriller, an anthology show that split its episodes into themes of crime and terror. The episodes were based on stories from the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch and Robert E. Howard and featured future stars William Shatner, Leslie Nielsen, Ursula Andress and Richard Chamberlain.
Lie to Me is re-working its focus away from the connection between The Lightman Group and the FBI, leading to the departure of cast member Mekhi Phifer, who played an FBI agent. Executive Producer David Graziano adds that "We’re going rogue a little bit. Lightman (Tim Roth) is going to act slightly in the more old-school PI model of a TV protagonist." (Hat tip to Crimespree Cinema)
TNT announced it has renewed Memphis Beat, the summer series featuring Jason Lee as Tennessee detective; this follows the recent announcement that it renewed another of its new crime dramas, Rizzoli & Isles.
PODCASTS/RADIO
NPR's Talk of the Nation program interviewed Sara Paretsky about her latest V.I. Warshawski novel, Body Work. Paretsky told host Neal Conan that letting Warshawski age along the years has been a challenge: She isn't as fit as she used to be and she can't drink as much as she used to.
Author link has a Q&A with J.A. Jance, Queen of the Night, dedicated to the late Tony Hillerman, and featuring former homicide detective Brandon Walker and his wife, novelist Diana Ladd.
ABC Radio International sat down for a chat with Val McDermid from the Melbourne Writers Festival. McDermid is in Australia promoting her latest book Trick of the Dark, with Charlie Flint, criminal profiling psychiatrist.
WAMU-FM profiled Thomas Kaufman, a cinematographer and author of Drink the Tea. Kaufman had long been fan of Raymond Chandler and George Pelecanos and always wanted to write a crime novel. Drink the Tea, his first attempt, was winner of the PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Competion.
Murder seems to be a perennial subject for movies and the recent so-called "drug wars" in Mexico are providing enough gruesome material for a slew of books, among them my own "An Inconsequential Murder" (http://www.untreedreads.com/?s=An+Inconsequential+Murder). As soon as I published it, I received a "query" about film rights! I am sure that the classics, "Scarface", "Carlito's Way" and "Traffic" are just the start of a series of thrillers that will be based on the tragedy that has befallen Mexico.
Posted by: Roberto | September 08, 2010 at 10:11 AM