It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Cinedigm has acquired North American rights to the CIA thriller, MK Ultra, starring Anson Mount, Jaime Ray Newman, and Jason Patric, scheduling it for release in theaters and on VOD this fall. The film is inspired by the true story of the illegal drug experimentation program, Project MKUltra, which the CIA established during the early 1960s. That program was a means of developing procedures and using drugs like LSD to weaken individuals in interrogations, forcing confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. The film will follow the brilliant psychiatrist Ford Strauss (Mount), who finds his professional and ethical boundaries tested as he is recruited to run a subset of the program at a rural Mississippi mental hospital.
Neon, the Oscar-winning studio behind Parasite, has acquired U.S. rights to Mothers’ Instinct, a psychological thriller starring Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway. The project is a remake of the 2018 critically acclaimed Belgian film, Duelles, by director Olivier Masset-Depasse, who will also direct the English-language remake of his film. As the official logline reads, "Set in the early '60s, best friends and neighbors Alice (Chastain) and Celine (Hathaway) both live an idyllic traditional lifestyle with manicured lawns, successful husbands, and sons of the same age. Life’s perfect harmony is suddenly shattered after a tragic accident. Guilt, suspicion and paranoia combine to unravel their sisterly bond and a psychological battle of wills begins as the maternal instinct reveals its darker side."
Ukrainian filmmaker Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi wrote and will direct the feature adaptation of John Valliant’s book, The Tiger, in which Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Award-winner Alexander Skarsgård will star alongside Dane DeHaan. Set in snowy far east Russia in the late 90s, the feature follows a group of men — referred to as the Tiger Team — who work to protect endangered tigers from poachers and logging operations. The story follows Vanzin (Skarsgård), the Team’s leader whose sense of duty is tested when he’s charged with hunting down and exterminating a tiger that killed a poacher in self-defense. DeHaan will portray Kanchuga, a young environmental scientist and newest member of the Team.
Mads Mikkelsen will star in the new action-thriller, The Black Kaiser, based on the Dark Horse graphic novel series by Victor Santos. In the story, Mikkelsen will play The Black Kaiser, the world’s most lethal hitman, who uncovers a deadly conspiracy protecting a powerful syndicate of killers and becomes their number one target.
Ralph Fiennes has signed up to lead the conspiracy thriller, Conclave, with John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini also joining the cast. The film, written by Peter Straughan and based on Robert Harris’s novel of the same name, will be directed by Edward Berger. The story is set following the death of the Pope, when the reluctant Cardinal Lomeli is tasked with overseeing the group of Cardinals from across the globe responsible for selecting a new leader for the Church. But as the political machinations inside the Vatican intensify, he realizes that the departed Pope had kept a secret from them that he must uncover before a new Pope is chosen.
Liam Neeson is set to star in the thriller, Thug, reuniting with his Cold Pursuit director, Hans Petter Moland. Thug revolves around an aging San Pedro gangster (Neeson) who attempts to reconnect with his children and rectify the mistakes in his past. But the criminal underworld won’t loosen its grip willingly. Tony Gayton (Hells on Wheels) wrote the screenplay.
Better Call Saul actress, Kerry Condon, is joining Liam Neeson and Ciarán Hinds in the thriller, In The Land Of Saints And Sinners. Set in a remote Irish village, Neeson will play a newly retired assassin who finds himself drawn into a lethal game of cat and mouse with a trio of vengeful terrorists. The screenplay comes from Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane, with revisions by Matthew Feitshans.
Daisy Ridley and Shazad Latif are set to star in Magpie, a contemporary noir thriller based on an original idea from Ridley that was written by Tom Bateman. Award-winning British theater talent Sam Yates will make his feature directorial debut. The film follows a couple whose lives are thrown into disarray when their daughter is cast opposite a controversial major star.
Luis Gnecco, Claudia Ramírez, and Juan Manuel Bernal will lead the upcoming thriller, Confessions. The film, from award-winning writer-director Carlos Carrera, sees a young child from an affluent Mexico City family go missing. At night, hours after the disappearance, a man arrives at the family home to discuss the child’s return. The terms are not monetary, rather a confession from one family member that has committed a terrible act. One by one, confession by confession, the intruder exposes each family member—unveiling their deepest, shocking secrets.
Reacher breakout star, Alan Ritchson, is in talks to join Fast X, the 10th installment of the "Fast and Furious" franchise, which will open in theaters May 19, 2023. Vin Diesel and the core cast are returning alongside franchise newcomers Jason Momoa and Brie Larson. Justin Lin and Dan Mazeau co-wrote the script. Reacher, based on the books and character by Lee Child, was renewed for a second season, and Amazon recently inked Ritchson to a three-picture deal.
FBI: Most Wanted actor, Kellan Lutz, has been set to star in the thriller, Palido. Lutz will play an attorney with a military past who hunts down the gang that killed his wife and brother and took his daughter. Javier Reyna (Regionrat) is directing from his original screenplay. The crime thriller is due to start principal photography on July 11 in the state of Washington, with additional casting underway.
Glen Powell and Adria Arjona have signed on to star in the upcoming action-comedy, Hitman, from Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater (Boyhood). Written by Linklater and Powell, the film is based on a true story and has Powell starring as the most sought-after, albeit least trustworthy hitman in Houston. If you pay him to rub out a cheating spouse or a sadistic boss, you’d better watch out: he works for the cops. When he breaks protocol to help a desperate woman (Arjona) trying to get away from an abusive boyfriend, he finds himself living the life of one of his false personas, falling for the woman and flirting with becoming a criminal himself.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
It's upfront season again, when the television networks make decisions on series cancellations and renewals and also which pilots will move forward. ABC has ordered The Rookie spinoff, The Rookie: Feds, to series, with Niecy Nash-Betts starring as Simone Clark, the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy. The mysteries of Big Sky will also continue at ABC, which has renewed the David E. Kelly series for season three. The series stars Kylie Bunbury and Katheryn Winnick, with Jensen Ackles, who guest starred in the season two finale, joining the cast as a series regular. Not going forward is ABC's L.A. Law sequel, which saw Blair Underwood reprising his role as attorney Jonathan Rollins, but the finished pilot is being shopped to other outlets.
In the already announced new ABC series, Will Trent, Sonja Sohn has been set as a lead opposite Ramón Rodríguez. Based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling book series, Special Agent Will Trent (Rodríguez) of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations was abandoned at birth and endured a harsh coming-of-age in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system. But now, determined to use his unique point of view to make sure no one is abandoned like he was, Trent has the highest clearance rate in the GBI. Sohn will play Amanda, the head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Will’s (Rodriguez) boss.
CBS’s program announcements included news that the FBI franchise will be continuing to solve crimes for the next few years after the network handed all three shows a two-season pick up. FBI will return for its fifth and sixth seasons; FBI: Most Wanted comes back for a fourth and fifth; and FBI: International gets picked up for its second and third seasons. It is the network’s latest bumper renewal order, having given The Equalizer a two-season pickup last week. CBS has also given series orders to three of its five drama pilots including Fire Country about an ex-con turned firefighter; the police procedural East New York, headlined by Amanda Warren and Jimmy Smits; and the mother-son legal drama, So Help Me Todd, starring Marcia Gay Harden and Skylar Astin.
It took an extra day but True Lies was also officially picked up by CBS to series. The project is a reboot of James Cameron’s hit 1994 action comedy movie and will star Steve Howey and Ginger Gonzaga in the roles made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Magnum PI wasn't as lucky, with CBS announcing the show starring Jay Hernandez will end after its current fourth season. Aside from Bull, which announced in January that its current sixth season will be its last, Magnum P.I. is the most established CBS series to be canceled this season. As a Top 25 show in total viewers, it also may also be the most watched broadcast series to get the axe this upfront season. As Deadline noted, as a reboot of the 1980s drama, which starred Tom Selleck, the new Magnum P.I. was a rare broadcast drama with a Latino lead.
Over at NBC, Law & Order has been renewed for Season 22 and Law & Order: Organized Crime for Season 3. The original "mothership" series returned from a 12-year-hiatus for its 21st season this year, with Sam Waterston and Anthony Anderson reprising their roles as D.A. Jack McCoy and Detective Kevin Bernard, respectively. The revived series also stars Jeffrey Donovan, Camryn Manheim, Hugh Dancy, and Odelya Halevi. NBC previously renewed Law & Order: SVU as part of a three-year renewal for what will be its 24th season, extending its record as the longest-running primetime live-action series of all time, and making it three-for-three for the Dick Wolf series.
The CW network also announced its fall season, which includes the Walker origin story, Walker: Independence. Starring Matt Barr and Katherine McNamara, the prequel is set in the late 1800s and follows Abby Walker (McNamara), an affluent Bostonian whose husband is murdered before her eyes while on their journey out West. On her quest for revenge, Abby crosses paths with Hoyt Rawlins (Barr), a lovable rogue in search of purpose. Abby and Hoyt’s journey takes them to Independence, Texas, where they encounter diverse, eclectic residents running from their own troubled pasts and chasing their dreams, all while becoming agents of change themselves in the small town.
Emmy winner Archie Panjabi is set to star opposite Idris Elba in the Apple thriller series, Hijack. Told in real time, the seven-part Hijack follows the journey of a hijacked plane as it makes its way to London over a seven hour flight, and authorities on the ground scramble for answers. Elba plays Sam Nelson, an accomplished negotiator in the business world who needs to step up and use all his guile to try to save the lives of the passengers. Panjabi portrays Zahra Gahfoor, a counter terrorism officer who is on the ground when the plane is hijacked and becomes part of the investigation.
The upcoming HBO and Channel 4 drama, Get Millie Black, has set Tamara Lawrance as the lead. With shooting beginning this week in Jamaica, the six-part detective drama has also rounded out its cast with Game of Thrones star Joe Dempsie joining and Tanya Hamilton set to direct. Lawrance will play ex-Scotland Yard detective Millie Black, who returns to Kingston to work missing persons cases for the Jamaican Police Force and soon finds herself on a quest to save a sister who won’t be saved, to find a boy who can’t be found, and to solve a case that will blow her world apart and prove almost as tough to crack as she is.
BBC One’s hugely popular drama, Silent Witness, celebrates its 25th series with the dramatic return of Amanda Burton as Sam Ryan. The longest-running crime drama currently airing on TV returns with six new episodes, opening in Liverpool with an assassination attempt and Sam Ryan calling on the Lyell team with a plea for help seventeen years after leaving the Lyell. Sam seeks to usher in democratic health care, but the shooting of the Health Secretary and Sam’s husband pulls Dr. Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox), Jack Hodgson (David Caves), and Simone Tyler (Genesis Lynea) into a world of duplicity, intrigue, and betrayal.
Left Bank Pictures and Netflix have set Sean Teale as the male lead in their new Spain-set series Palomino (working title). Teale joins lead Evin Ahmad in the eight-part thriller series set in the suburbs of Barcelona. Ahmad plays British teacher, Erin Carter, who is caught up in a brutal supermarket robbery and finds her life threatening to unravel as one of the robbers claims to recognize her. Teale will play Erin’s Spanish husband, Jordi, who works as a nurse at the local hospital. As the series progresses, Jordi starts to question his past, as well as his marriage.
Australian author, Dervla McTiernan, whose last two novels were international bestsellers, has optioned The Murder Rule, a thriller novel being published this month, to FX. The book focuses on an idealistic law student, who is an outsider to her peers. Working with her elite campus’s prestigious Innocence Project represents the high point of everything she’s sacrificed for, but in a twisted mother/daughter story, she soon reveals that underneath her do-gooder image lie rules pounded into her by mom—including "make them pay."
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Speaking of Mysteries welcomed P. David Ebersole to discuss his debut novel, 99 Miles From L.A., which was inspired by the song of the same title written by Hal David and Albert Hammond—and sung by everyone from Hammond to Julio Iglesias to Art Garfunkel, although it’s Johnny Mathis’s take that inspired Ebersole and consequently the novel.
On Spybrary, Jeff Quest welcomed Otto Penzler to share stories from his many years of collecting books and meeting spy fiction authors. They discussed stories about Eric Ambler, Charles McCarry, John le Carré, and many more, as well as Penzler's meeting with Len Deighton, how Ross Thomas nearly lost out on a million dollars, and a shocking revelation about a piece by Quiller writer Adam Hall.
Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Franz Zafiro, chatted with Emmeline Duncan about her Portland-based cozies.
My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, spoke with Edwin Hill, author of the critically-acclaimed Hester Thursby mystery series, the first of which, Little Comfort, was an Agatha Award finalist, a selection of the Mysterious Press First Mystery Club, and a Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books selection.
Queer Writers of Crime discussed the news that when ReQueered Tales obtained the rights to Grant Michael's Stan Kraychik series, they never expected to come upon an unpublished 7th novel in the series. That novel, Do-Si-Do with Death, will be published later this month.
Nicola Upson chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about her novel, Dear Little Corpses; Josephine Tey and Margery Allingham; WWII and Golden Age crime; the Hitchcocks and Gielguds; not so cozy emotions; and the fun of writing.
