Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Universal Pictures has begun making deals with Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass to potentially reunite for a third installment of the original Bourne Identity series. The film may end up with the July 16, 2016, release slot Universal previously assigned to an untitled spinoff sequel reprising Jeremy Renner in the title role.

Tribeca Film acquired North American rights to the cop thriller Hyena, written and directed by Gerard Johnson. The film stars Michael Logan as a high-functioning addict and corrupt police officer in London who contends with a recent influx of ruthless Albanian gangsters and his own self-destructive behavior.

Universal Pictures is courting Liam Neeson to take the lead in Tell No One, based on the thriller by bestselling novelist Harlan Coben.

Anthony Hopkins is joining director Daniel Alfredson (The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest) for Go With Me, adapted from the 2008 novel by Castle Freeman Jr. The plot centers on a young woman who returns to her hometown in the Pacific Northwest only to be harassed by an ex-cop turned crimelord and has to turn to an ex-logger (Hopkins) to help her fight back against her sociopathic stalker.

Just six weeks before shooting was scheduled to begin on the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, director Fredrik Bond has left the project due to "creative differences."

Roxwell Films has optioned rights to produce Ed Sanders’ 1971 book The Family, about Charles Manson and the notorious 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders. The project will be adapted by Guinevere Turner, who co-wrote with director Mary Harron the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho.

New Line Cinema purchased the spec script North Of Reno from writer Banipal and Benhur Ablakhad for producer Beau Flynn. The original story is said to be a "twisty, crime thriller centered around the pursuit of a hidden fortune."

The Imitation Game won the Grolsch People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, which the LA Times notes pushes it in an Oscar-season front runner. The film is adapted from the book Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the WWII codebreaker.

Although the plot of "Bond 24" is still under wraps, when the film starts shooting in December, it will include three countries other than the U.K. as locales, including Austria, Rome, and Morocco.

Denzel Washington announced he's signed on for a role in the eventual remake of The Magnificent Seven, being penned by True Detective's Nic Pizzolatto.

TELEVISION

Legendary TV has acquired the rights to John Scalzi's latest novel, Lock In, with plans to develop it into a series. The plot centers on a highly contagious virus that causes one percent of the U.S. population to become paralyzed but fully aware; twenty-five years later, the immobile are able borrow the bodies of “integrators,” and when two FBI agents investigate the murder of one of the paralyzed, the case spirals into something far larger.

British actor Ben Whishaw (who portrayed Q opposite Daniel Craig's James Bond in Skyfall), has been cast in the BBC drama London Spy, playing a gregarious, hedonistic romantic who gets drawn into the dangerous world of British espionage.

CBS has given a pilot commitment to Jerry Bruckheimer for a project based on the nonfiction book Acquittal: An Insider Reveals The Stories and Strategies Behind Today’s Most Infamous Verdicts, written by trial consultant Richard Gabriel. Like the book, the pilot will center on an influential trial consultant who "works alternately for the prosecution and the defense, using unorthodox ideas and tactics, often more psychological than legal."

ABC is developing an untitled Quantico drama described as Grey's Anatomy meets Homeland. The plot revolves around a group of diverse FBI recruits going through training at the FBI's academy in Quantico, Virginia, including one sleeper terrorist.

TNT has given a pilot order to Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay for their untitled serialized character drama set in the "wild and unpredictable world of the Florida drug trade in the 1970s."

Deadline reported that Chiké Okonkwo has signed on for a multi-episode arc on Cinemax‘s Banshee, playing a mysterious business associate of crime kingpin Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen). Scott Glenn also has joined the cast of Marvel’s Daredevil for Netflix, playing the mysterious martial artist and mentor of crimefighter Matt Murdock a/k/a Daredevil (Charlie Cox).

Sam Elliott and Garret Dillahunt will have recurring roles for the sixth and final season of FX/Sony TV’s drama series Justified, with Elliott playing a legendary Kentucky gangster and Dillahunt playing a Special Ops veteran.

Fox handed out a script commitment to The Ultimate Getaway, about a commercial airline crew who use their layovers to commit robberies in different cities across the country.

Zach Gilford and Jonathan Cake have been cast opposite Jennifer Carpenter in USA’s drama pilot Stanistan, set in the American compound in the Middle Eastern country of Stanistan, where State Department workers, covert CIA officers and journalists "strike a delicate balance of danger and levity."

NBC released a trailer ahead of tonight's new season of The Blacklist.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

James Ellroy stopped by Late Night with Seth Meyers to talk about his latest book Perfidia: A Novel. He was also the subject of a profile on NPR's All Things Considered, which had a "'Lasciviously LA Lunch With Crime Novelist James Ellroy."

The latest Crime and Science Radio show featured hosts Jan Burke and DP Lyle in a discussion of combat surgery and fiction writing with Vascular and Trauma surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Wilson.

Recently, the public radio program To the Best of Our Knowledge had a program on Global Noir, featuring guests Barry Forshaw, Soren Sveistrup, D.A. Mishani, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Gary Shteyngart, Parker Palmer, Joan Blades.