MOVIES
Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules) is taking on an adaptation of the best-selling crime novel by Lars Keper, The Hypnotist. It will be the director's first Swedish film in 25 years and his first-ever thriller.
DreamWorks has acquired the original script Voices from the Dead by J. Michael Straczynski. It's a thriller based on the friendship between magician Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which was real enough, although the script is about a fictitious case involving a psychic and bizarre murders in 1920s New York.
If you're a fan of film noir, then check out the charity blogathon February 14-21 titled "For the Love of Film (Noir)," to benefit the Film Noir Foundation. In addition to helping restore films in danger of being lost forever, you'll have a chance to be entered in raffles.
Andrew Garfield, Jennifer Garner and Marcia Gay Harden have joined the cast to star in Infinity Media's adaptation of the bestselling novel Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell (an Oprah's Book Club selection in March 2000). The murder-mystery plot is set in Pennsylvania and will be directed by Adrian Lyne.
Collider has posted the first looks at scenes from the upcoming film J. Edgar from Clint Eastwood. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover; Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson, Hoover's confidant and secret lover; and Judi Dench as Hoover's mother, Anne Marie.
Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice has found a wealthy benefactor and appears to be back on track. It follows Larry "Doc" Sportello, a pothead private eye wandering through the Summer of Love in 1969 Los Angeles, tracking down the killer of a woman's wealthy lover
D.J. Caruso has signed on to direct the film adaptation of Josh Bazell's suspense novel Beat the Reaper, about a former mobster-turned-doctor in the witness protection program whose past comes back to haunt him.
TV
Pay-cable channel Cinemax is taking the plunge into the original programming pool with its first scripted primetime drama, Strike Back, a 10-hour action series written by X-Files alum Frank Spotnitz and British TV writer Richard Zadjlic (EastEnders) and loosely based on Chris Ryan's book of the same name. The series stars Damien Scott as a former U.S. Special Forces op and Philip Winchester (Fringe, Crusoe) as Section 20 officer Michael Stonebridge.
AMC has scheduled a two-hour premiere for its new series Killing, about the murder of a young Seattle girl, Rosie Larsen, and the subsequent police investigation, on April 3. USA has likewise scheduled its premiere of the spinoff Burn Notice made-for-television prequel film, Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe, on April 17. Not to be outdone, A&E released a video sneak peak of its new crime drama Breakout Kings.
Apparently, the failure of J.J. Abrams's spy show Undercovers and the disappointing ratings for Fringe haven't diminished his clout in Hollywood; CBS picked up another pilot from Abrams, Person of Interest, which follows an ex-CIA hit man and a scientist who team up to prevent crimes before they happen.
PODCASTS/RADIO
Bunburyist's Elizabeth Foxwell points us to an interview with Joan Schenkar, author of The Talented Miss Highsmith.
CrimeWav's latest podcast is up, with excerpts from a new novel by Nik Korpon (Stay God).
THEATER
A play based on the Detective Murdoch mystery novels by author Maureen Jennings is currently being staged in London. No Traveler Returns has the detective working undercover to solve a murder at a Huntsville inn during the Victorian era.
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