Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Benedict Cumberbatch is in talks to replace Guy Pearce in the new Whitey Bulger drama Black Mass currently filming in Boston, taking on the role of Billy Bulger, brother to the famous mob boss. The film is based on the book Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal, and will be released in theaters next year. Adam Scott was also added to the cast.

Dr. Who alum Karen Gillan is joining Ethan Hawke, John Travolta, and Taissa Farmiga in writer-director Ti West‘s revenge thriller Western In A Valley Of Violence. Gillan will play one of two sisters who run a hotel in the town where Hawke’s drifter seeks vengeance for the death of his best friend.

The untitled Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks Cold War film has snagged Joel and Ethan Coen to write the script. The project is based on the real-life story of Gary Powers, shot down while operating a spy plane above the Soviet Union, and James Donovan, a Harvard Law School alum used by the CIA to facilitate Powers' release.

When actor River Phoenix died at the age of 23 in 1993, he was working on the thriller Dark Blood, which was put on hold. Now, over 20 years later, the film is being given a theatrical release. Phoenix plays a desperate widower called Boy who lives in the desert on a nuclear testing site, but when a married couple (Jonathan Pryce and Judy Davis) show up, he imprisons them to conquer his loneliness and lust.

20th Century Fox released a trailer for Matthew Vaughn‘s Kingsman: The Secret Service, based upon the comic book by Mark Millar, depicting a veteran secret agent who leads a young protege into the world of espionage.

Pierre Morel's The Gunman, starring Sean Penn, will debut on screens first in France before rolling out across theaters in the U.S. and the U.K. on February 20, 2015.

There's a new trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of the TV series The Equalizer. The update stars Denzel Washington as the former intelligence officer with a mysterious past who helps people in trouble.

TELEVISION

TNT's Major Crimes was itself a spinoff of The Closer, and now Major Crimes is geting a potential offshoot that would star Jon Tenney as Special Agent Fritz Howard, the husband of the series' main character, Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick).  

Author Christopher Fowler hinted at a plan in the works to bring his Bryant & May series to television. Fowler adds, "Although the deal is under wraps at the moment, I can reveal that, following negotiations with several companies, the old codgers will get a fresh chance to be seen by TV networks as a possible series."

The UK (and original) version of Broadchurch has rounded out its cast for the upcoming second season. In addition to David Tennant and Olivia Colman reprising their roles, there will be some new faces:  Charlotte Rampling, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Eve Myles and James D’Arcy.

Chloe Sevigny and Steven Pasquale have signed on for recurring roles on Netflix’s untitled psychological thriller drama written and executive produced by Damages creators Todd A. Kessler, Daniel Zelman and Glenn Kessler. The 13-episode series is set in the Florida Keys and centers on a close-knit family of four adult siblings (Kyle Chandler, Ben Mendelsohn, Linda Cardellini, Norbert Leo Butz) whose secrets and scars are revealed when their black sheep brother (Mendelsohn) returns home.

Coming in June, David Tennant (Dr. Who, Broadchurch) stars as a brilliant defense lawyer with a storybook family and a potent nickname, "The Escape Artist," for his ability to win freedom for guilty defendants. It debuts in June on PBS Masterpiece! Mystery, and Janet Rudolph over at Mystery Fanfare has a sneak preview.

The new network El Rey released a first look at the upcoming spy series Matador (no relation to the Pierce Brosnan movie), about a CIA agent whose cover is an international soccer star, originally pitched as a "Latino James Bond." The story comes from veterans Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Alias, Mission: Impossible 3).

The startup company ScreenHits is unveiling The Pilot Showcase, hosting 50 produced pilots that weren’t picked up to series. The shows will remain on the site for six months, where networks could theoretically then step in and pick them up.

THEATER

The cast was announced for the fall 2014 Broadway premiere of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, an adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling novel. Stars will include Alexander Sharp, "a soon-to-be Juilliard grad, in his Broadway debut," as well as Ian Barford (August: Osage County), Helen Carey (London Assurance), Francesca Faridany (The 39 Steps) and Enid Graham (The Constant Wife). Sharp will play the main character, an odd 15-year old boy suspected of killing his neighbor’s dog whose search for the real killer has unforeseen consequences. The play had an original, award-winning run in the U.K. at the National Theatre.