Tom Rob Smith's crime novel Child 44 is still headed for the movies, but a studio switch may mean Ridley Scott, originally hired to direct the film, will now serve as producer while Swedish director Daniel Espinosa will take over directing duties. Espinosa's most recent project was the Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds thriller Safe House.
The producers behind the just-released gangster drama Lawless released a featurette with director John Hillcoat and some of the film's stars, including Shia LaBeouf, Jason Clarke, and Guy Pearce. The clip also includes insights from Matt Bondurant, author of the novel The Wettest County in the World, on which the film is based, who is also a descendant of the movie's real-life heroes.
There's also a new trailer for the Robert Redford-helmed The Company You Keep, starring Shia LaBeouf as a journalist who desperately needs a scoop to keep his job and may get it when a member of the radical group Weather Underground (played by (Susan Sarandon) is arrested.
And for the younger set (and the young at heart), Disney is releasing the 1986 animated movie The Great Mouse Detective on Blu-ray later this month.
TV
Mystery Fanfare reminds us that Starting September 9, the third season of Wallander returns to Masterpiece Mystery! on PBS. The series stars Kenneth Branagh as Inspector Kurt Wallander, the moody Swedish detective created by mystery author Henning Mankell.
ABC ordered a S.H.I.E.L.D pilot from Joss Whedon, set in the same universe as Whedon's Avengers film, with a super-hero law enforcement group headed by Nick Fury.
Vera Farmiga has signed on to play the lead female role in the new A&E series Bates Motel, a prequel to the Hitchcock classic Psycho that looks at the earlier days of Norma's relationship with her son Norman Bates.
The SyFy network has picked up the Canadian sci-fi crime drama Continuum. The series stars Rachel Nichols as Kiera Cameron, a regular cop from 65 years in the future who finds herself trapped in present day Vancouver fighting eight ruthless criminals known as Liber8, who are also from the future. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
Could Beverly Hills Cop be headed to the small screen? Shawn Ryan, Eddie Murphy and Sony Pictures Television have teamed up to adapt the Beverly Hills Cop franchise featuring a fast-talking Detroit cop who heads off to Beverly Hills to investigate a murder. Murphy would serve as executive produce and guest star occasionally.
ABC has bought the drama project Patron Saints, written by Jeffrey Bell (Spartacus) and described as a mystery thriller about a covert group who help people in lost, desperate and impossible circumstances.
CBS picked up an untitled crime drama that centers on an FBI agent from Nebraska who single-handedly prevents a major domestic terrorist attack while on a family vacation, becomes an American hero, and then takes on a new job leading a DC task force.
The CBS UK affiliates have picked up the hit Australian series Underbelly, the San Francisco police drama The Division, and the crime series Sins & Secrets.
PODCASTS
Forensic anthropologist and novelist Kathy Reichs joined NPR's "Science Friday" program, talking about her writing and the TV show Bones, based on Reichs herself and her work.
The latest installment of NPR's summer Crime in the City series features Harry Dolan talking about his novels set in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
THEATER
Sacramento's Big Idea Theatre is performing Red Herring through September 15th, a dramedy that combines Cold War-era commie-hunting with a murder mystery and a trio of love stories, which plays out in more than a dozen settings across the globe.
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