Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Liam Neeson has signed on to play Matt Scudder in the film version of A Walk Among the Tombstones, based on the novel by Lawrence Block. Scudder is an ex-NYPD cop and unlicensed private detective (and recovering alcoholic) hired to find the kidnapped wife of a drug dealer.

A Good Day To Die Hard, the fifth installment of the "Die Hard" franchise starring Bruce Willis, has added Amaury Nolasco (Prison Break) and Megalyn Echikunwoke (CSI: Miami) to the cast. The latest installment finds hero Bruce Willis in Russia to get his son out of prison and uncovering a terrorist plot in the process.

Pierce Brosnan and Dominic Cooper are set to star in the spy thriller November Man, directed by Roger Donaldson. It's based on the book There Are No Spies by Bill Granger.

Philip Seymour Hoffman joined the cast of the John Le Carre spy thriller A Most Wanted Man, playing a roguish chief of a covert German spy unit.

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy are teaming up for a comedic buddy cop movie, with Bullock playing a "high-strung FBI agent" who has a strained relationship with McCarthy's character, an "unconventional Boston cop," as they team up to take down a Russian gangster.

Universal Studios bought the rights to a Mark Wahlberg film, The Disciple Program, described as "a Manchurian Candidate-style thriller in which a man's wife dies, and he discovers that it was no accident and investigates the murder."

Duncan Jones has been hired to direct a feature film biopic about the life of Ian Fleming. The project is based on Andrew Lycett's biography Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond.

Here's the first released clip from the upcoming movie Paperboy, directed by Lee Daniels and starring Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack and Zac Efron. The film is an adaptation of Pete Dexter's novel about an investigative journalist and his slacker younger brother who get embroiled in a four-year-old murder case along with a death row femme fatale.

Omnimystery News also notes that set photos have been relased from the upcoming Alex Cross film, based on the character and novels created by James Patterson.

TV

The police procedural Unforgettable was recently canceled by CBS, but it appears it may find a new home on TNT or Lifetime.

TNT announced the premiere dates for their summer season, including returning Rizzoli & Isles and Leverage, and new crime dramas Perception (about a neuroscientist and professor recruited to help the federal government) and Difficult Cases, starring Mary McDonald, formerly of Battlestar Galactica.

TNT also provided more details about new series currently in production (yet to be scheduled), including shows based on books by David Baldacci, Robert Littell, William Brinkley, Ross McDonald and Tom Clancy, as well as an untitled Steven Bochco murder mystery project.

A&E has canceled the crime drama Breakout Kings after two seasons. A&E had picked up the show after Fox took a pass, but ratings just weren't there.

The new thriller series on Fox starring Kevin Bacon won't debut until 2013, but the network already has a trailer. The plot follows an FBI agent who's brought out of retirement to track down an escaped serial killer.

Also not on the schedule until 2013: Zero Hour, starring Anthony Edwards as paranormal enthusiast whose wife is abducted, drawing him into a "Divinci Code-type suspense thriller, complete with conspiracies and life-or-death situations."

CBS has already released trailers for its new fall series Elementary, a contemporary take on Sherlock Holmes, and Vegas, a historical western-style crime drama.

PODCASTS/WEBCASTS

NPR reviewed and discussed Don't Cry, Tai Lake, the seventh novel in the politically charged Inspector Chen series written by Chinese expatriate and poet Qiu Xiaolong.

THEATER

Maryland's Olney Theatre Center is staging Anthony Shaffer's mystery thriller Sleuth from June 13 to July 8. The play won the Tony Award for Best Play and inspired two film versions.