Monday means it's time for the latest roundup of crime dramas on stage and screen:
MOVIES
Willem Dafoe is joining Gerard Butler, Billy Bob Thornton and rapper/actor Common in the cast of the submarine thriller Hunter Killer. The story centers on a renegade Russian military leader whose actions lead to the brink of war with the U.S., leaving an elite U.S. Navy unit to prevent World War III. Dafoe will play Russian submarine Captain Andropoyov.
Danielle Nicolet has been signed as the female lead opposite Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson in the Warner Bros-New Line buddy comedy Central Intelligence. The film follows a mild-mannered accountant (Hart) whose former classmate (Johnson) now works for the CIA and talks the accountant into helping thwart a plot to sell military secrets. Nicolet will play Maggie, the wife of Hart’s character and his high school sweetheart.
Disney has pushed the release date for Chris Pine’s Coast Guard thriller The Finest Hours to January 29, 2016. The film also stars Casey Affleck and is directed by Craig Gillespie.
TELEVISION
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced the nominations for their television awards, recognizing the best from programs in 2014. Several crime thrillers were honored, including Murdered By My Boyfriend, Happy Valley, Line of Duty, The Missing, and True Detective. Benedict Cumberbatch also received a nod for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.
Production has begun on the 1970s-set Cinemax noir drama Quarry, based on Max Allan Collins' book series. The show stars Logan Marshall-Green as Mac "Quarry" Conway, a Marine who returns home from Vietnam and makes his way back into civilian life as a hit man deployed by a mysterious character known as The Broker (played by Peter Mullan).
Amazon Studios has started production on Natchez Burning, a short-run series based on Greg Iles' thriller of the same name that centers on a Southern lawyer and former prosecutor, Penn Cage.
ITV renewed its detective series Lewis for a 9th season. Kevin Whatley and Laurence Fox will return as Detectives Robbie Lewis and James Hathaway, alongside Angela Griffin as Detective Sergeant Lizzie Maddox.
HBO unveiled the first True Detective season two teaser trailer, starring Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn. The new season premieres Sunday, June 21.
Chris Cooper and Cherry Jones have joined the cast of Hulu's 11/22/63, based on the Stephen King novel. The project stars James Franco as a high school English teacher who travels back in time to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Robert Sean Leonard (formerly of House), will guest star on a May episode of the NBC drama Law & Order: SVU. He's been added to the episode that will also see the temporary return of former cast members Andre Braugher and Dann Florek. Leonard will play ADA Kenneth O’Dwyer, who once sent a man to jail for raping his daughter, but when the daughter chooses to recant her testimony, the case is reopened. The episode will also welcome back former series regulars Andre Braugher and Dann Florek.
Eliza Dushku is joining the crime drama Banshee on Cinemax, playing Agent Veronica Dawson, "a tough, sexy and shockingly reckless FBI profiler with no shortage of personal demons who joins forces with Hood to hunt down a killer." Banshee centers on an ex-con and master thief (played by Antony Starr), who assumes the identity of the sheriff of Banshee, PA, enforcing his own code of justice.
ABC announced its summer lineup, which includes the fifth season of Rookie Blue, and a new series, the suspense-thriller The Whispers, which follows a group of kids in Washington, D.C., who are being manipulated to do dangerous things by a mysterious force.
The USA Network unveiled its summer and fall broadcast slates. The summer schedule includes the thrillers Complications (from the creator of Burn Notice) and Mr. Robot. The fall programs include AWOL, which deals with the gritty world of an ex-military operative, and Cooley & The Tank, which goes behind the scenes of the fictional 1981 detective drama of the same name to explore the complicated lives of its two feuding stars.
Netflix released a trailer for the third season of Orange is the New Black, featuring scenes with Taylor Schilling as Piper Chapman, Kate Mulgrew as Galina “Red” Reznikov, and Uzo Aduba as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren
PODCASTS/RADIO/VIDEO
On the latest Crime and Science Radio podcast, hosts Jan Burke and D.P. Lyle welcomed Lisa Mayhew, child death investigator.
Meanwhile, the most recent Suspense Radio Beyond the Cover podcast featured special guest Harlan Coben, while SR's Inside Edition hosted authors Jon Land, Edward Freeland, and John Trudel.
The BBC has created an immersive story online told through text, images and video, which follows a trail ot missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls all killed in Winnipeg.
Adnan Syed, the subject of the popular Serial webcast in 2014, will return as the main figure in a spin-off second series. Undisclosed: The State v. Adnan Syed, will dig deeper into the 16-year-old murder case that has Syed serving a life sentence for the alleged murder of 17-year-old Hai Min Lee.
THEATER
Hartford Stage Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak is taking on the world premiere of Rear Window as part of its 2015-2016 season. The play is an adaptation of the Cornell Woolrich short story that inspired the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film.
An adaptation of Peter James' thriller novel Dead Simple will premiere at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal from April 13-18. This is the second James novel to be adapted in conjunction with producer Joshua Andrews (The Perfect Murder). The story was the first feature James' now famous character of Detective Roy Grace, who has to solve the disappearance of a man who's been buried alive.
GAMES/COMICS
IDW Publishing announced it's adapting Nicholas Meyer’s bestselling mystery novel The Seven-Per-Cent-Solution into a five-part comic book series from writers Scott Tipton and David Tipton and artist Ron Joseph. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution centers on a “rediscovered” Sherlock Holmes adventure that's a collaboration between Holmes and Sigmund Freud in which secrets about Moriarty, Mycroft Holmes and Sherlock's true whereabouts during the Great Hiatus are revealed.
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