Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Warner Bros has hired Australian actor/filmmaker Kieran Darcy-Smith to direct Blackwater, a fact-based story scripted by Gideon Yago. The story follows the controversial contractor, its role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and four of its employees facing trial in the killings of 14 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 18 others.

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are in early talks to star in Shane Black's noir film The Nice Guys. The film is set in 1970s Los Angeles and follows muscle-for-hire and recovering alcoholic Jackson Healy and Holland March, a private eye and practicing alcoholic, who are brought together by the suicide of a fading porn star that turns into a far-reaching murder conspiracy rooted in smog and the U.S. auto industry.

Actress Isla Fisher will join her husband Sacha Baron Cohen in Sony's upcoming spy spoof Grimsby, directed by Louis Leterrier. The plot centers on a British black ops spy (played by Mark Strong) forced to go on the run and team up with his "idiotic English football hooligan brother" (Baron Cohen).

A full trailer was released for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, and starring Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Eva Green.

TELEVISION

Imagine TV optioned The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins, the upcoming book by decorated CIA agent Robert B. Baer (his Syriana earned George Clooney an Oscar).  The series chronicles the history of assassination as a political tool and outlines his rules for an effective kill.

The House of Dolls, the first book in David Hewson’s new Amsterdam-based crime series featuring detective Pieter Vos, has been optioned for a Dutch TV series by Eyeworks, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers Television. (Hat tip to Ayo Onatade at Shots Magazine.)

The Australian show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries has been renewed for a third season. You can catch the first two seasons on Netflix in the U.S. or via Acorn in other regions.

Fans of the original Swedish crime drama The Bridge (upon which an American version was based) will be disappointed to hear that actor Kim Bodnia won't be returning for Season 3 due to "different perceptions of the season's content," according to co-producer spokesman Anders Landstrøm.

Showtime's Homeland is adding Raza Jaffrey (of Smash fame) and Michael O'Keefe (King & Maxwell) for Season 4. Jaffrey will play Aasar Khan, a decorated lieutenant-colonel in the Pakistan intelligence service, and O'Keefe will play deputy station chief John Redmond, stationed in the CIA's Pakistan outpost.

Mary Steenburgen is joining the women-in-prison series Orange is the Black, although it's not yet known whether she will be guest-starring or a regular. Meanwhile, cast member Dascha Planco was promoted to a regular role in the series, continuing her portrayal of pregnant inmate Dayanara Diaz.

Joe Adler has been promoted to series regular on The Mentalist, continuing his role as an FBI agent who specializes in computers.

Steven Bochco's new drama Murder in the First debuted strongly for TNT, becoming the number one new series launch on cable. The procedural stars Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson as homicide detectives investigating two seemingly unrelated murders that end up being connected.

FX decided not to go forward with the series Hoke starring Paul Gianatti as hardboiled (and possibly insane) homicide detective Hoke Moseley in pre-chic Miami in the mid-1980s.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Author Linda Fairstein joined Late Night host Seth Meyers to discuss her latest thriller Terminal City.

Jo Nesbø was interviewed by host John Mullan at the Guardian books podcast about his Harry Hole detective series and how to pronounce his name.

The latest Crime and Science Radio program is titled "The Art and Science of Law Enforcement: An Interview with Robin Burcell." D.P. Lyle and Jan Burke chat with the author about her books and her experiences as a police officer, a forensic artist, a hostage negotiator, and a detective.

Rick Rinehart appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday to discuss his grandmother, mystery author Mary Roberts Rinehart, who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery alongside her husband, Dr. Stanley Marshall Rinehart, a doctor in the Army Medical Corps.

THEATER

Cloak and Dagger, a new whodunit noir musical spoof by Ed Dixon, is making its world premiere at the Signature Theatre in Washington, DC. The send-up of 1950s film noir centers on the third-rate detective Nick Cutter and features four actors playing nearly 20 roles. Music and lyrics are by Ed Dixon with orchestrations by Jordan Ross Weinhold.

Joseph Goodrich's adaptation of The Red Box, the fourth novel in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series, is making its world premiere at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota and runs through July 13, 2014. Mystery Scene magazine sat down with Goodrich for an interview about the adaptation process.