It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news. There's a lot of activity due to the flood of pent-up news following the dormant holiday season, but we'll try to get through it all:
AWARDS
The 2020 Screen Actors Guild Awards were handed out at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles last night. Crime drama nods include Joaquin Phoenix snagging a Best Actor nod for his role as the Joker and Brad Pitt as Best Supporting Actor for Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
It's been 25 years since the original Bad Boys film starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as Miami cops, and 17 years since Bad Boys II. But Sony’s Bad Boys For Life, the long-awaited third installment of the series, is in the midst of the second-best MLK Weekend opening of all time at the domestic box office, leading to an inevitable sequel. Bad Boys For Life screenwriter Chris Bremner has been set to return and write the script for the fourth movie, although there is no word on whether Belgians Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah will return to direct. But Smith and Lawrence are expected to reprise their respective roles.
Mike Colter has joined the cast of the thriller, Till Death, which is directed by Aharon Keshales and stars Jason Sudeikis and Evangeline Lilly. The project follows convicted felon Jimmy (Sudeikis) who gets early parole after serving twelve years for armed robbery. Upon his release from prison, he vows to give Annie (Lilly), his childhood love, now dying from cancer, the best last year of her life.
RLJE Films has acquired rights to The Postcard Killings, the thriller based on James Patterson and Liza Marklund’s 2010 bestseller, The Postcard Killers. Jeffrey Dean Morgan stars as NYPD Detective Jacob Kanon, whose world is thrown into turmoil when he learns his daughter and son-in-law have been brutally murdered in London. When similar crimes are being reported across Europe, with each killing accompanied by a postcard sent to a local journalist, Jacob will do whatever it takes to stop the killings and find justice for his little girl.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
The Emmy-nominated Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul, has been picked up for a sixth and final season. The 13-episode final season is set to air on AMC in 2021. Showrunner Peter Gould said he was set to begin work on the final run of episodes in the coming weeks.
Amazon Studios has greenlit Jack Reacher, a series based on the character from Lee Child’s bestselling series of books that will be scripted by Nick Santora (Scorpion, Prison Break). The first season will be based on the first Jack Reacher novel, The Killing Floor. Amazon is also determined to find a Jack Reacher-sized actor, according to Amazon Studios head, Jen Salke, who added "You may see us take our time really making sure we find that person."
The CW greenlit a Walker, Texas Ranger reboot series. Walker will star Jared Padalecki as Cordell Walker, a widowed father of two with his own moral code who returns to his home in Austin after two years of undercover work on a high-profile case. He’ll attempt to reconnect with his family and find common ground with his new partner (one of the first women in Texas Rangers history), while growing increasingly suspicious about the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death.
The Disney-owned Freeform network has picked up the Jessica Biel-produced Last Summer, an unconventional thriller that takes place over three summers — 1993-95 — in a small Texas town. The plotline: "When a beautiful popular teen, Kate (Mika Abdalla), is abducted and, seemingly unrelated, a girl, Jeanette (Chiara Aurelia), goes from being a sweet, awkward outlier to the most popular girl in town and, by ’95, the most despised person in America."
BBC One has commissioned and set the cast for a new six-part thriller from the makers of Bodyguard. Vigil (working title) will tell the fictional story of how the disappearance of a Scottish fishing trawler and a death on-board a Trident nuclear submarine create conflict between the police, the Royal Navy, and intelligence services.
Acorn TV has acquired the North American rights to Channel 4’s David Tennant four-part drama, Deadwater Fell. Created and written by Daisy Coulam (Grantchester), Deadwater Fell centers on a Scottish community that is torn apart by mistrust and suspicion when a happy family is murdered by someone they know and trust. Tennant becomes a prime suspect in the investigation.
CBS’s FBI and FBI: Most Wanted could be joined by another spinoff from executive producer Dick Wolf, who has always envisioned FBI as a franchise. Wolf, who is behind the formidable Law & Order and Chicago franchises said the FBI offers an "endless trove of stories." CBS and Wolf will likely start working on developing another FBI series next season.
Speaking of the current FBI franchises, FBI and FBI: Most Wanted are set for a crossover episode in the spring that would start in New York. Dick Wolf also hinted at potential crossovers with other series in the Wolf universe, such as Chicago PD, despite the fact that they are on a different network.
Courtney B. Vance (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) is heading back to the courtroom to star in AMC’s upcoming legal thriller, 61st Street. He’ll play Franklin Roberts, a public defender in the twilight of his career who takes on the case of a lifetime: a promising, black high school athlete who is swept up into the infamously corrupt Chicago criminal justice system when he is taken by the police as a supposed gang member and accused of the death of an officer during a drug bust gone wrong.
Hannibal star Hugh Dancy is joining The Good Fight's upcoming fourth season in a major recurring role. Dancy will play Caleb, a former military officer who now works as an associate at the huge multi-national law firm that has acquired Reddick Boseman & Lockhart. However, his wit and decency threaten to make him a better fit with Diane and Co. than the overlords.
Kurt Fuller will be returning as Woody in the second TV movie continuation of the USA series, Psych. Fuller's character, Dr. Woodrow Juniper "Woody" Strode, was introduced in Psych Season 4 as the SBPD's quirky coroner. The producers also announced that Allison Miller, James Roday, Sarah Chalke, Kadeem Hardison, and Richard Schiff have also been added to the cast.
Netflix has ordered a 10-episode third season of its hit stalker-drama series, You, based on Caroline Kepnes’s bestselling books, for premiere in 2021.
Showtime has opted not to proceed with spy thriller Intelligence, from The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal. Intelligence was to be based on real stories from around the world, exploring the secret inner workings of power – how espionage intersects with politics, finance, media and Silicon Valley.
Meanwhile, another Showtime project, the Ray Donovan series, is nearing the end of its run, according to Showtime’s Co-President of Entertainment, Gary Levine. Levine added that Showtime is expected to make a decision on the future of the Liev Schreiber-fronted show "in the next few weeks" but hinted that it is set to return for an eighth and final season.
Netflix has released the cast of Mindhunter from their contracts, although the show has not been cancelled and co-executive producer David Fincher has the option of producing a third season in the future. The project is based on the best-selling true-crime nonfiction book, Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker. The first two seasons starred Holt McCallany, Jonathan Groff, and Anna Torv as fictionalized versions of key people behind the formation of the FBI team and included depictions of some of America’s worst serial killers and their crimes.
ITV and BritBox’s long-running detective drama, Vera, is returning for an 11th season. The show stars Brenda Blethyn as Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope, a middle-aged employee of the Northumberland & City Police, who plods along in a disheveled state but has a calculating mind. The series is based on novels by British crime writer, Ann Cleeves.
Starz has opened talks to order a second season of the gritty crime drama, Dublin Murders, adapted from Tana French’s crime thrillers featuring the Dublin Murder Squad. The show stars Killian Scott as Rob Reilly, a smart-suited detective whose English accent marks him as an outsider, who is dispatched to investigate the murder of a young girl on the outskirts of Dublin with his partner, Cassie Maddox, played by Sarah Greene.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Monocle Magazine's Meet the Writer podcast welcomed bestselling UK crime author, Sophie Hannah, who has taken up where Agatha Christie left off by continuing the stories of Hercule Poirot.
Debbi Mack, host of the Crime Cafe podcast, welcomed crime writer Blaine Pardoe to the show.
Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham chatted about Dublin Murders, the TV adaptation of In the Woods and The Likeness by Tana French (see the TV listings above).
Speaking of Mysteries spoke with Jess Montgomery about the latest installment in her historical procedural series featuring Sheriff Lily Ross.
A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up, featuring the first chapter of A Legacy of Murder by Connie Berry, read by actor Ariel Linn.
Dr. DP Lyle's Criminal Mischief podcast tackled the topics of toxicology and poisons in the first of a two-part series on the subject.
Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about suspects seeking sanctuary in a church, off-site offices, and what a homicide scene looks like the day after the police leave.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Bookclub spoke with Rachel Monroe, a writer and volunteer firefighter living in Marfa, Texas, about her book, Savage Appetites, which takes a look at the appeal of true crime through four narratives of fixation.
Scott Montgomery led a discussion of private detective fiction with a panel of authors, historians, and editors including Matt Coyle, Tim Maleeny, Laura Oles, Tim Bryant, Billy Kring, and Jeff Vorzimmer, on the Mystery People's latest podcast.
THEATRE
Calgary, Canada's Vertigo Theatre Mystery Series is presenting Whispers in the Dark beginning January 25. Based on the short story, "A Pair of Hands" by Arthur Quiller Couch, the play centers on Miss Elizabeth Le Petyt, an aspiring author, who ventures to Cornwall to escape her hectic London life. The cottage she chooses has a mysterious past, and seems like the perfect inspiration for her writing. However, misplaced items, inexplicable events and whispers in the dark disrupt her solace, and have her questioning her sanity.
An adaptation of Kay Mellor’s classic ITV drama, Band of Gold, is heading to the Darlington Hippodrome in the UK on January 27. The story revolves around a group of women - Carol, Rose, Anita and Gina - and tells the story of how a young mother is drawn into the notorious red-light district where a killer is on the loose.
Cleveland, Ohio's Allen Theatre at Playhouse Square will present Clue on January 25. Based on the popular mystery board game, the play sees murder and blackmail are on the menu when six mysterious guests assemble at Boddy Manor for a night they’ll never forget.
American Son is headed to the Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, on January 22. Set in a Miami-Dade police station in the middle of the night, a mother is hunting for answers about her missing teenage son. Soon her husband appears, and the evening spirals out of control.
Joseph Kesselring's iconic play, Arsenic and Old Lace, will be presented at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in La Mirada, California, with a run beginning on January 24. Abby and Martha Brewster are two spinster sisters known for their acts of charity – which lately includes poisoning lonely, old men with their homemade arsenic-laced elderberry wine.
When An Inspector Calls heads to the UK's Milton Keynes Theatre on January 21. Based on JB Priestley’s classic thriller, the story follows Inspector Goole, who arrives unexpectedly at the prosperous Birling family home and shatters their peaceful dinner party with his investigations into the death of a young woman.
Tom Chambers stars as Tony Wendice, a jaded ex-tennis pro who has given it all up for his wife Margot, in Dial M for Murder (made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1950 film) at the Norwich Theatre Royal beginning January 21. When Tony discovers Margot has been unfaithful, his mind turns to revenge and the pursuit of the "perfect crime."
The Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach will present The 39 Steps with an opening date of January 21. Based on the novel by John Buchnan, the play is a fast-paced whodunit filled with nonstop laughs and over 150 characters (played by four actors).
The humorous whodunnit musical, Curtains, will head to the Sunderland Empire Theatre in the UK on January 21. The star of the new Broadway-bound musical, Robbin Hood, has been murdered on stage on opening night, and the entire cast and crew are suspects. Time to call in the local detective, Frank Cioffi, who just happens to be a huge musical theatre fan.
British director-choreographer, Melly Still, is set to direct a production of Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack’d, "re-contextualised for an Indian audience" by writer Ayeesha Menon. The play will be staged at the NCPA in Mumbai between January 30 and February 9.
