MOVIES
ImageMovers bought film rights to The Execution of Noa P Singleton: A Novel, the best-selling debut by author Elizabeth L. Silver. The plot follows a twenty-something college dropout who sits on death row for murder in Pennsylvania until a powerful attorney, the victim's own mother, tries to get his sentence commuted.
DreamWorks Studios acquired a book proposal by Paul Kix titled Noble Assassin, based on the true story of French aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur Robert de la Rochefoucauld, described as "being James Bond before there was a James Bond."
Olivia Munn (of the Newsroom) is in negotiations to join Johnny Depp in David Koepp's Lionsgate movie Mortdecai, based on Kyril Bonfiglioli's comedic crime novel The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery. The story follows Charlie Mortdecai (Depp), a wealthy art dealer and part-time rogue who often gets himself involved in strange cases of crime and espionage.
Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks will co-star alongside Charlize Theron and Chloe Moretz in Dark Places, the big screen adaptation of Gillian Flynn's best-selling mystery novel. Dark Places is one of two novels by Flynn being adapted for the big screen, along with Gone Girl, which is under the helm of director David Fincher and producer Reese Witherspoon.
Several trailers were released recently for films coming up later this month and in the fall, including the thriller Getaway, in which former race car driver Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) is pitted against the clock trying to save the life of his kidnapped wife; Ridley's Scott's The Counselor, based on a script by Cormac McCarthy about anattorney (Michael Fassbender) who finds himself in over his head after he gets involved with the drug trade; and the crime thriller Mission Park set in San Antonio, TX, where a drug syndicate has taken control of the region. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
Here are a couple of publicity stills, one from the upcoming Foxcatcher with Steve Carell, who will take on a new type of role playing a killer, and the other for the WWII thriller The Monuments Men about a platoon sent into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
TELEVISION
As many mourned the death of author Elmore Leonard last week, Graham Yost, the showrunner for FX's Justified (based on a character from one of Leonard's stories), offered up a remembrance.
In more sad news, production on Rizzoli & Isles was shut down following the suicide of cast member Lee Thompson Young, who played the role of Detective Barry Frost. Warner Bros TV and executive producer Janet Tamaro said, "Everyone at Rizzoli & Isles is devastated by the news of the passing of Lee Thompson Young. We are beyond heartbroken at the loss of this sweet, gentle, good-hearted, intelligent man."
Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) is turning to television with Channel 4 pilot Babylon, said to be a contemporary police drama. BAFTA winners Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong have been hired to pen the script.
ABC has ordered a pilot from Shondaland, that company's fourth project during the current development season. How To Get Away With Murder will be written by by Grey's Anatomy supervising producer Peter Nowalk and is described as a "sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller about a group of ambitious law students and their brilliant, mysterious criminal defense professor who become entangled in a murder plot that will rock their entire university and change the course of their lives." (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
Sylvester Stallone is in talks for a Rambo television series, participating on a "creative level," with a new actor brought in to play the main character.
Marg Helgenberger will return as Catherine Willows for the 300th episode of CSI. The episode will center on a cold case that takes the characters back to the beginning, partly in the form of flashbacks, interspersed with new material.
Fox put in development a secret service dramedy titled Kill Zone, written by Todd Harthan (Psych) and produced by 20th TV. The buddy show is built around "an intense, edgy, humor-laced relationship between Dole Green, a 10-year vet of the Secret Service, and his rookie partner, Chad Burke, as they protect the President of the United States from a very credible death threat."
Melanie Griffith has signed on to play the mother of Danny Williams (Scott Caan) on Hawaii Five-0 for the upcoming season.
The Chicago Fire spin-off, Chicago PD, added Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill) and Patrick Flueger (The 4400) to the cast that already includes Jason Beghe, Jon Seda and Jesse Lee Soffer. The new show will follow the department's Intelligence Unit that combats organized crime, drug trafficking, and high profile murders.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The latest installment of NPR's "Crime in the City" series features author Ben Winters and his apocalyptic novel series based in Concord, NH.
As part of Open Road Media and MysteriousPress.com making the iconic stories from Black Mask available as ebooks, they released a video featuring Mysterious Press' Otto Penzler taking us back to 1920s and the creation of the iconic Black Mask magazine, where mystery greats Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Carroll John Daly got their start.
Jason Matthews, retired CIA officer and debut author of the spy thriller Red Sparrow, joined NPR's Diane Rehm Show to talk about his book and his career.
THEATER
Kenneth Branagh will make his New York stage debut in the U.S. premiere of Rob Ashford and Branagh's staging of Macbeth, featuring Branagh in the title role. The production is scheduled to open in June 2014 at Park Avenue Armory's 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall and feature Alex Kingston (River Song in Doctor Who) as Lady Macbeth.
I'm excited about the Black Mask stuff. Open Road Media does some good work with formatting the old stuff.
Posted by: Kelly Robinson | August 26, 2013 at 03:58 PM