Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

John Cusack is replacing Tobey Maguire in The Paperboy, Lee Daniels's film based on the novel by Pete Dexter, which won the PEN Center USA literary award for fiction in 1996. The book and movie are about a death row prisoner convicted of killing a Florida sheriff and the investigative reporter who suspects Cusack's character was wrongly imprisoned.

Say hello again to Miss Moneypenny, who was AWOL in the first two Daniel Craig Bond movies. Naomie Harris is set to play the flirtatious secretary in the forthcoming James Bond film being released in November 2012. Craig notes that the series may start to morph into the more familiar Bond legacy over the next two films.

In case you haven't caught it yet, here's the trailer for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes sequel starring Robert Downey, Jr. as the detective and Jude Law as Dr. Watson. Jared Harris plays Holmes's nemesis, Moriarty, and it appears there will be a love interest for Holmes again (a departure of sorts in both films from the Holmes canon) with Rachel McAdams and/or Noomi Rapace.

Chris Pine as Robocop? MGM is apparently trying to get the Star Trek reboot's Captain Kirk for the remake of the futuristic Paul Verhoeven film. However, no contracts have been signed yet.

Michael Chiklis has been cast as the bad dude in the adaptation of author Donald Westlake's Parker series. He'll star as the villain who gets in the way of career criminal and titular anti-hero Parker, to be played by Jason Statham.

And it's official, apparently. Tom Cruise will definitely play Jack Reacher in the film version of Lee Child's novels. Reacher is 6 feet 5, 250 pounds and Cruise is 5 feet 7 and about 150. Casting against type, perhaps?

TV

The Encore network is premiering three dramas, the first offerings in its Encore Originals programming. The slate will include the U.S. premiere of a miniseries based on the Martina Cole crime thriller The Take. It stars Tom Hardy, Brian Cox and Kierston Warein and was first broadcast in the UK in 2009.

Ted Danson is taking over the reins of Lawrence Fishburne, who took over for William Peterson in the forensic procedural CSI. Executive producer Don McGill said, "From the moment we all started talking about the role, it was clear he couldn't be more perfect:  intelligence, wit, warmth, depth of character and emotion, he brings it all. And now he'll have to bring latex gloves, too"

We have a trailer for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie, so why not some sneak peaks from the set of the BBC TV version of Sherlock, starrting Benedict Cumberbatch? CrimeWatch has some photos from the upcoming mini-series, currently taping in Wales.

Hawaii 5-0 has added Lauren German for the second season, playing a beautiful (of course) Homeland Security agent hand-picked by the new governor to keep tabs on McGarrett's team. She's also set to become a potential love interest for Alex O’Loughlin's McGarrett.

HitFix has a preview of the NBC midseason series Awake, which columnist Daniel Fienberg says may be the best-looking network pilot in several years. It follows Jason Isaacs as a detective living two parallel lives, one when he's awake and another when he's asleep, although viewers are left to wonder which is reality and which is the dream.

NBC has rounded out the cast of its adaptation of the 1993 movie The Firm (based on the John Grisham novel), with Juliette Lewis and The Killing cast member Callum Keith Rennie.

If you live in the New Orleans area, are female, and have always wanted to be private investigator, now may be your chance. Reality TV producers are looking for Louisiana women interested in becoming private investigators. 

Former cop Drew Peterson, currently in jail for killing his third wife after the mysterious disappearance of his fourth wife, has sicced his lawyers on the Lifetime TV movie currently in production, which stars Rob Lowe as Peterson. The movie is based on a nonfiction book by reporter Tenna Booth, which Peterson's lawyers called "a biased and malicious portrayal."

PODCASTS

Blog Talk Radio's Flashes in the Dark program welcomed Richard Godwin to talk about his book, Apostle Rising, his love of crime noir and horror, and why he likes to talk to fellow writer types.

Comments

[Yvette]

That Tom Cruise/Reacher casting has disaster written all over it. It's amazing to me that anyone could think that this is a good idea. Besides Cruise that is. I don't know anyone who is happy about this. Most have sworn off seeing the film. I know I have.

As a reader of Lee Child's books, I have to say that I am really very disappointed in this news.

I'm hoping it won't spoil the mental image I have of Reacher while I'm reading.

[BV Lawson]

Cruise and the studio are probably counting on his fans to come see the movie, especially those that haven't read the Reacher books. I'm so often disappointed by film adaptations of books, that I'm always surprised when one turns out well.