MOVIES
British actor Jack O'Connell plays the lead in Starred Up, the prison drama that's already a hit on the film festival circuit and will be available in the U.S. in a limited release starting in New York City on August 29. O'Connell also stars in the upcoming World War II film from Angelina Jolie titled Unbroken.
Mission: Impossible 5 has hired its new female lead, Rebecca Ferguson, who starred in the BBC series The White Queen. The producers have also signed Alec Baldwin for the cast, playing the head of the CIA.
Warner Brothers picked up U.S. and Canadian rights for The Nice Guys, starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling in the period noir story of a private eye who investigates the apparent suicide of a fading porn star in '70s L.A. and uncovers a conspiracy.
Gary Oldman is joining the cast of Criminal, starring Kevin Costner as a prison inmate who is implanted with memories, secrets and skills of a dead CIA agent and then hired by the Agency to help stop a villain's evil plot. Oldman would play the CIA chief in charge of the project.
Penelope Cruz is in final negotiations to join Sacha Baron Cohen in the spy comedy Grimsby.
The first image was released of Sir Ian McKellen portraying an older Sherlock Holmes in the upcoming film A Slight Trick of the Mind, scheduled for 2015. The film is adapted from Mitch Cullin's book about a 93-year-old Holmes who is haunted by an unsolved case from 50 years ago. Meanwhile, it was announced that Hiroyuki Sanada (of 47 Ronin and The Wolverine) is joining the cast.
A trailer was released for Atom Egoyan's kidnapping thriller The Captive, starring Ryan Rehnolds, Rosario Dawson, Scott Speedman and Mireille Enos.
TELEVISION
The Emmy Award nominations were announced last Thursday, with crime-themed program well represented, including Breaking Bad and True Detective for Best Drama Series and Orange is the New Black for Best Comedy Series. In the miniseries category, the contenders include Fargo, Luther, Bonnie and Clyde. Sherlock: His Last Vow was also nominated in the Television Movie category. Best Acting nominations (leading and supporting) went to Bryan Cranston, Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Clare Danes, Aaron Paul, Mandy Patinkin, and Anna Gunn in the series categories. Sherlock's Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch were nominated for Best Miniseries/Movie acting. For all the Emmy nominees, check out the official website. Idris Elba, Andre Braugher (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Uzo Aduba and Laverne Cox from Orange Is The New Black were among a record eleven African-American actors with Emmy nominations.
As Ominimystery News reminds us, Agatha Christie's Poirot concludes its run this summer, with the final five episodes starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot airing on PBS's Masterpiece Mystery! and Acorn TV, beginning July 28.
Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch are in talks for the second season of True Detective. Show creator Nic Pizzolatto has said there will be four leads, so that would mean two down, two to go.
Gillian Flynn's debut 2006 novel Sharp Objects is being developed as a one-hour drama series by eOne Television, with Flynn serving as executive producer. The story follows a reporter recently released from a psych hospital given an assignment to cover the murders of two preteen girls in the same small hometown where her estranged family lives.
AMC released more information about the plot and actors, as well as two new photos, for their Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul, starring Bob Odenkirk as the shady attorney Saul Goodman, six years before he met the teacher-turned-meth-cook Walter White.
Gina Gershon has landed a guest-starring role on Elementary playing a socialite whom Joan (Lucy Liu) suspects of running a notorious drug cartel. The show's producers also announced that British actress Ophelia Lovibond will join the series in a recurring role, playing Kitty Winter, Detective Sherlock Holmes’ new apprentice in New York, who immediately becomes rivals with her predecessor, Joan Watson.
TNT's Major Crimes is adding Canadian actor Ryan Kennedy (Caprica, Hellcats) to the cast to play Ricky Raydor, the son of Mary McDonnell's Capt. Sharon Raydor.
BBC America is developing the mystery series Tatau, a drama from the producers of Being Human. Set in the Pacific's Cook Islands, the plot centers on two globetrotting friends, Kyle Connor and Pete "Budgie" Griffiths, who stumble on a mysterious chain reaction of events after Kyle gets a tattoo that elicits a strange reaction from the local people. When Kyle finds a girl who's been murdered, but the body disappears Kyle begins to believe that he instead has seen into the future and he and Budgie race to prevent the girl's death. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
BBC America also annouced it was renewing the mystery series Orphan Black for a third season and the police drama Broadchurch for a second season.
HBO announced that the fifth and final season of the Prohibition Era Boardwalk Empire will premiere in early September.
Fox announced its fall premiere dates including Gotham, Sleepy Hollow, Bones, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the ten-part mystery "event series" Gracepoint.
Investigation Discovery announced they are adapting Vanity Fair magazine’s crime stories to the small screen in a new series called Vanity Fair Confidential.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
CBS' Face the Nation featured crime writers Sandra Brown, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Karin Slaughter, and David Ignatius discussing which thrillers are on their reading list this summer. (Hat tip to Crime Watch.)
The latest installment in NPR's summer "Crime in the City" series features Crime writer Ann Cleeves, who sets her mysteries in Shetland.
NPR also had a feature on the tenth anniversary of the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear.
This week's Crime and Science Radio program featured a conversation with Deborah Halber about amateur sleuths who are helping to solve cold cases.
THEATER
The Milwaukee-based Peninsula Players' next production is Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, which runs through July 27.
St. Louis, Missouri's New Line Theatre announced its 24th season of alternative musical theatre, including the St. Louis premiere of the new musical Bonnie & Clyde.
GAMES
The producers of the Battlefield series are taking it in a new direction with Battlefield Hardline. The team at Visceral Games is collaborating with Bill Johnson (Justified), Kelly Hu (Arrow), Eugene Byrd (Bones), and Benito Martinez (House of Cards) to "fuse the interactive medium of video games with the creative presentation of TV crime dramas to deliver a wholly new and unique experience to gamers...about the war on crime in the gritty and glamorous streets of LA and Miami."
EVENTS
Comic-Con 2014 (July 24-27 in San Diego) released its full program schedule, which includes stars and creative forces behind several crime dramas and films. Some of the TV shows represented include Bones, Bates Motel, Sleepy Hollow, Orphan Black, 24, Grimm, and The Blacklist. Films represented include Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and Hitman: Agent 47.
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