Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

It's been almost 30 years since the television series Mike Hammer, based on the novels by Mickey Spillane and starring Stacy Keach as the iconic private eye. Now, Warner Bros. has acquired the feature film rights to the "Mike Hammer" novels, although details are sketchy on the concept for any potential movies. (With thanks to Omnimystery News for the tip.)

Filming will soon start on Ombra Films' project, Mindscape, scripted by Guy Holmes and directed by Jorge Dorado, with a cast that includes Mark Strong, Taissa Farmiga and Brian Cox. The plot follows a man with the ability to enter people’s memories who tries to determine if a 16-year-old girl is a psychopath, a victim of trauma, or both.

Universal Pictures continues to pursue its remake of the gangster film Scarface, hiring Paul Attanasio to rewrite the movie from the original draft by David Ayer. The plan is to reimagine Scarface in a contemporary setting, rather than have it be a remake or a sequel.

The first film based on James Patterson's fictional detective Alex Cross, with Tyler Perry as the famous Washington D.C. crimefighter/psychologist, opened just this past Friday (to mixed reviews), but a sequel is apparently already in the works.

Universal Pictures and producer Scott Stuber have optioned the Derek Haas spy thriller novel The Right Hand. The book is focused on Austin Clay, a spy whose work is so covert that the government won’t even admit he exists, sent to track down a missing American operative in Russia.

Blackout, an action thriller based on a script by Sidney King, is closer to becoming a movie project. The plot centers on a cop transporting a mysterious and dangerous criminal across town when a city-wide blackout plunges them into darkness and chaos.

TV

The CWA handed out the winners for its film/TV Dagger Awards last Thursday. The Film Dagger went to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, while the The TV Dagger was given to Sherlock: Series 2. Other awards included The International TV Dagger to The Bridge; The Best Actress Dagger to Claire Danes for Homeland; The Best Actor Dagger to Benedict Cumberbatch for Sherlock; The Best Supporting Actress Dagger to Kelly Macdonald for Boardwalk Empire; The Best Supporting Actor Dagger to Martin Freeman for Sherlock. Also, the Best Detective Duo chosen by public vote was awarded to Lewis' DI Robbie Lewis and DS James Hathaway. (Hat tip The Rap Sheet.)

BBC America renewed its historical police procedural series Copper for a second season. The series, which centers on an Irish immigrant cop (played by Tom Weston-Jones) in 1864 New York, premiered in August with 1.1 million total viewers, the largest audience ever for a BBC America series debut.

CBS ordered two crime drama pilots, a project set in New Orleans titled The Big Easy, and Darkness Falls, a police procedural of sorts, in which an FBI psychologist and a homicide specialist "journey into small communities around the country to solve the darkest, most twisted single murders."

ABC bought American rights to the Dutch series Sea Of Fire, which will be adapted by Steve Maeda (The X-Files) and produced by Sony Pictures TV. The original series centered on three teenage girls who star in a pornographic film, a decision that "tears their families apart and leads to a disappearance, a murder and host of other secrets boiling under the surface."

Crime Time Preview summarizes upcoming crime dramas to be broadcast on BBC and ITV in the UK, some of which will show up in U.S. markets later in the year (e.g. Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and John Freeman).

PODCASTS

Patricia Cornwell joined CBS's This Morning to promote her new novel, The Bone Bed, and noted that she was "the pop culture mother of CSI."