MOVIES
There may be a new film version of Bonnie and Clyde in the works. Director Neil Burger is working with screenwriter Sheldon Turner, after acquiring the rights to the book Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn (published last year by Simon & Schuster). The book is a "less romanticized version" than was used for the 1967 film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
Joan Allen and Albert Finney appear to be on the verge of reprising their roles in the latest installment of the Bourne spy series, with Allen as a CIA agent and Finney as the head of a behavior modification program. However, Matt Damon won't be appearing in The Bourne Legacy, and Jeremy Renner will instead play a new operative in the film.
The movie project The Company You Keep, a vehicle for Robert Redford to star in, direct and co-produce, is expanding its cast, as Nick Nolte is set to join Redford and the already-announced Shia LaBeouf. Redford plays a former militant wanted by the FBI who must go on the run when his true identity is exposed by an ambitious young reporter.
Actor Frank Grillo has lined up two roles in crime films, Ruben Fleischer's Gangster Squad and also End of Watch. The first film is about gangster who runs the Continental Press Service as part of a plan to control horse racing on the west coast. (The film has already signed Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Emma Stone and Michael Pena.) The second is a Los Angeles-based cop story starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena.
Nicolas Cage and John Cusack are set to star in The Frozen Ground. It's based on the true story of Alaska's most notorious serial predator, Robert Hansen (Cusack), who abducted more than 24 women over 12 years and flew them into the Alaskan wilderness to be hunted. Cage will portray an Alaskan State Trooper who finds Hansen's only surviving teen victim and teams with her to bring Hansen to justice.
If you happen to find yourself in Brisbane, Australia, check out Australian Cinémathèque's surrealist film festival through October 2nd, highlighted by French filmmaker Louis Feuillade's celebrated serial films of the silent era, based on pulp detective fiction.
Three new stills have been released from the upcoming film Twixt, starring Val Kilmer as "a burnt-out mystery writer who gets mixed up in murder and evil in a California town."
TV
John Corbett and Julie Benz will headline the TV movie Ricochet, based on the book by Sandra Brown. It's the second entry in TNT's recently announced Tuesday Night Mystery franchise debuting in November and featuring six contemporary crime dramas.
Jamie Reagan (played by Will Estes) is getting a new partner for Season 2 of Blue Bloods. Lie to Me actress Monica Raymund joins the cast as Leah Sosa, an accomplished rookie police officer who gets assigned to Jamie when his previous partner, Renzulli (Nick Turturro), is promoted to fill in as platoon commander.
BBC America has been given a 10-episode order for its first original scripted crime drama, Copper. Set in 19th century New York, the show follows a young Irish cop operating in the immigrant communities of the time period. Production starts in the fall in Toronto and will premiere in the summer of 2012.
ITV is renewing four of its crime-themed dramas, including Vera, based on the novels by crime novelist Ann Cleeves and starring Brenda Blethyn as Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope; Scott & Bailey; Case Sensitive, based a novel by Sophie Hannah; and Kidnap & Rescue. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
A&E has passed on one crime-drama pilot, Big Mike, but appears ready to give the go-ahead to Longmire, starring Robert Taylor and based on the series of novels by Craig Johnson.
Max Martini, last seen as the ill-fated hitman in the May finale of the series Castle, is being reborn as part of the cast of ABC's new fall drama Revenge. He'll play Frank Saunders, a "rugged, pragmatic private investigator" hired by the show's wealthy patriarch, Conrad Grayson (Henry Czerny of The Tudors').
More casting news: two new villains will appear in the spy series Chuck, Mark Hamill and Craig Kilborn (the original host of The Daily Show); Molly Parker (Deadwood) has landed the female lead opposite Josh Lucas in NBC's upcoming series The Firm; William Baldwin is heading to Hawaii 5-0 for a multi-episode arc as a former homicide detective who was kicked off the force for corruption; and here's your first look at Ted Danson as the new William Peterson/Laurence Fishburne in CSI.
Career LAPD Detective/author Paul Bishop stars in a new reality show on ABC called Take the Money and Run. Bishop will interrogate contestants to find a briefcase filled with $100,000.
Fans of fictional serial killer Dexter will be able to participate in an interactive Faceboook game that will let players do everything from stalking their victims to exploring new locales. It's set to tie-in with the Season 6 story arc.
THEATER
Jeremy Davidson and Jefferson Mays have joined the cast of Lincoln Center Theater's production of Blood and Gifts. The play tells the story of the secret spy war behind the official Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s. As Broadway World sums it up, CIA operative Jim Warnock (to be played by Davidson) struggles to stop the Soviet Army's destruction of Afghanistan, along with his counterparts in the KGB and British and Pakistani secret service. As the outcome of the entire Cold War comes into play, Jim and a larger-than-life Afghan warlord find the only person they can trust is each other
So much news!
Posted by: Patti Abbott | August 01, 2011 at 05:18 PM
It's a trick to keep up with it all, especially when there are often changes to cast and crew and deals fall through. Several of the new projects sound interesting, and I hope they don't disappoint.
Posted by: BV Lawson | August 01, 2011 at 11:05 PM