MOVIES
This bit of casting is probably going to be as controversial and hotly debated as the news that 5'9" Tom Cruise would play 6'6" Jack Reacher from Lee Child's novels. It appears the film adapation/reboot of the popular 1970s TV show Rockford Files (originally starring James Garner), is being filmed as a star vehicle for Vince Vaughn. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake are teaming up in Runner, Runner, a thriller about online gambling. Brad Furman, the same director behind the film adaption of Michael Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer, is also on board the project.
Taken director Pierre Morel has signed on to direct Bastille Day, an action thriller about a young American artist living in Paris who teams up with a washed-up CIA agent to prevent an attack on the city.
Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper may be teaming up for a film written by Eric Singer about the 70s FBI sting operation Abscam that took down a bunch of U.S. congressmen. It's not a done deal, but it has a director (David O Russell) and funding appears to be in place.
Hat to Janet Rudolph of Mystery Fanfare for alerting us to upcoming noir film events at the San Francisco International Film Festival and Arthur Lyons Film Festival in in Palm Springs.
Speaking of film festivals, the Noir City Festival in Los Angeles will also be screening 30 rarely-seen films through May 6th at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre.
TV
The eight-part series The Great American Manhunt began on NatGeo TV this past Friday (but hopefully you can catch the first installment On Demand). It's a reality challenge show sets that pits three real-world crime experts (a cop, a forensic scientist and a forensic psychologist) against each other in hunting down a real-life mystery target at large without any modern shortcuts like DNA, dental records or ID databases.
USA has announced the summer return dates for Burn Notice, White Collar, Covert Affair and more.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. is adding a new crime drama, Cracked, to its 2012-13 schedule. The police procedural stars Stefanie von Pfetten (Battlestar Galactica). The CBC had earlier announced it had acquired Murdoch Mysteries, a period drama from Shaftesbury Films.
Mariska Hargitay has signed a deal with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit to return for a 14th season next year.
The producers of Homeland announced new characters and storylines for the second season debuting in September. There's also a trailer on this link (with a warning for possible spoilers).
The original Netflix mob drama Lilyhammer is returning for a second season. The show folows Frank 'The Fixer' Tagliano (played by Steven Van Zandt) as he attempts to start a new life in Lillehammer, Norway.
Actor Vince Vaughn is developing a new drama about global private security operatives with Boardwalk Empire's Lawrence Konner. I have a feeling this project will be a little less controversial for Vaughn.
PODCASTS/RADIO
David Suchet, who plays the perfect Hercule Poirot in the BBC's television adaptations of Agatha Christie's series, talked with BBC Radio 4 about his role in a new production of Long Day's Journey Into Night and the upcoming final installments of the Poirot series.
Sarah Weinman discusses the new book Hit Lit, by mystery writer James W. Hall, and his case that the biggest hits from the past hundred years share 12 features.
THEATER
Academy Award-nominated playwright Jose Rivera will join the production of his Off-Broadway drama Massacre (Sing to Your Children) for the April 23 and 25 performances—as an actor. The psychological drama is set in a small New Hampshire town where seven friends conspire to murder their mysterious neighbor Joe.
Author Anthony Horowitz, the creator of the TV series Foyle's War, is also a successful playwright, and his psychological thriler Mindgame (that debuted off-Broadway in 2008), is being staged in several locations: by the Progress Theatre Company in the UK in May; the Willits Community Theatre in Northern California; and the UK's Loft Theatre in September.
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