MOVIES
Johnny Depp and Rob Marshall have both signed on for a film adaptation of The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. Screenwriter Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight) is also on board. The last movie version was in1934, a comic turn starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. No word on exactly what form this version will take, but Marshall said "We are looking forward to working with Warner Bros. to create a reinvention of a beloved story."
The Cannes Film Festival turned a little chilly this year with a large Scandinavian contingent. In addition to movies by three Nordic directors, a first for the festival, there were other Scandinavian films represented, thanks to the success of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy. Film rights were snapped up for Jo Nesbø's novel The Snowman, featuring his detective Harry Hole, and a film already based on a Nesbø book, Headhunters, is being screened at the festival. Kenneth Branagh is in talks to adapt Henning Mankell's novel Italian Shoes. There's also a screening of an upcoming adaptation of the Swedish crime series The Fjallbacka Murders by author Camilla Lackberg.
Sam Worthington will star and F. Gary Gray direct The Last Days of American Crime based on the graphic novel written by Rick Remender. Worthington plays a career criminal who must pull off one last heist before the government's new form of legal form of mind control—making it impossible for people to commit unlawful acts—goes into effect.
The 39 Clues, the bestselling young-adult Scholastic Media book series, online game and card collection, is turning into a live-action movie directed by Brett Ratner. It was bought by DreamWorks partners Stacey Snider and Steven Spielberg, with Spielberg set to direct, but he's apparently too busy.
A film directed by Ben Hibon and scheduled for release in 2012 re-imagines Peter Pan as a darker-edged story blended with detective fiction. The plot centers on Hook (Aaron Eckhart), a troubled former police detective obsessed with tracking down a strange, childlike kidnapper who's been swiping and killing kids. Sean Bean is also in the cast in the role of Smee, chief detective on the force and Hook's last remaining friend.
Julie Andrews, Gemma Arterton, Matthew Goode, and Gabriel Byrne have been added to the cast of the upcoming film based on Agatha Christie's book Crooked House. It's set to start filming this summer in the U.S.
TV
Jennifer Love Hewitt is in talks to replace the departing Mariska Hargitay Law & Order: SVU. Meanwhile, SVU's male star Christopher Meloni still has no deal for next season.
Over at Criminal Element, Tara Gelsomino summarizes the new crime dramas popping up in the fall TV schedule, now that most of the network upfronts have been announced. This means it's time for the networks to post their fall schedules, which NBC did yesterday and Fox today.
After lengthy negotiations, Criminal Minds co-star Shemar Moore got a hefty pay raise to return to the CBS crime drama next season. Thomas Gibson is now the only remaining cast member without a contract to return.
PODCASTS
NPR reviews Pete Hamill's Tabloid City and also has an interview with the author. You can also read an excerpt on the link page.
Craig Ferguson hosted crime writer Lawrence Block on his late-night show, promoting his new novel, A Drop of the Hard Stuff.
NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday took a look at infamous crime stories included in Popular Crime, with the author of the new book, Bill James.
THEATER
The world premiere of The Detective's Wife by Keith Huff runs May 24 through July 31 at the Writers' Theater in Glencoe, just outside Chicago, Illinois. Penned by playwright Keith Huff (award-winning writer for AMC's Mad Men), the plot hinges on Alice Conroy, the mother of two grown children, owner of a book store and wife of a Chicago homicide detective. When her husband is gunned down on the job, she is determined to find out who did it and why.
Ken Ludwig's play Post Mortem is being staged at the Oyster Mill Playhouse in East Pennsboro Township, Pennysylvania. The play is set in April 1922 at the Connecticut country estate of an actor, William Gillette, who is famous for portraying Sherlock Holmes. Guests who were present a year ago when another guest allegedly committed suicide have reassembled on the anniversary of that tragedy, only Gillette believes it was murder, not suicide, and uses his faux-Holmsian experience to try to prove it.
SO interested to see what Johnny Depp does with Nick Charles. But who for Nora? Keira Knightly? Does she have the incipient sophisticated nuttiness that Myrna Loy had? Maybe.
Or out of left field - how about Tina Fey??
And that Peter Pan movie sounds mighty odd. But I will wait and see.
Posted by: Yvette | May 17, 2011 at 01:46 PM
You just never what you're going to get with Johnny Depp in a movie -- the actual "Thin Man" novel by Hammett wasn't quite as comedic as the movie, so perhaps Depp's version will be a little darker, like the "Alice" film. That would determine who is cast as Nora, whether a comedic actress or a more dramatic actress is required...
Posted by: BV Lawson | May 17, 2011 at 06:39 PM