Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Kenneth Branagh has come on board the new film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express as both director and star, taking on the role of Hercule Poirot. Branagh is also a co-producer along with Ridley Scott (The Martian), Simon Kinberg (The Martian, X-Men: Days of Future Past), and Mark Gordon (Steve Jobs) with Michael Green (Blade Runner 2) writing the screenplay,

DreamWorks has acquired The Travelers, the latest thriller by New York Times best-selling author Chris Pavone. The book is descripted as a "Hitchcockian thriller with shades of Mr. And Mrs. Smith and North By Northwest."

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie is rumored to be considering a return to the Mission Impossible franchise for the sixth installment. Paramount and Skydance plan to potentially begin shooting as early as next August, with Tom Cruise once again on board to headline the picture.

Actor/comedian T.J. Miller is developing a project for Dreamworks titled Ex Criminals, with Miller starring in the project about a dysfunctional couple whose streak of bank robbing comes to a halt when they break up the night before their biggest heist ever.

Bruce Willis, Kellan Lutz and Dan Bilzerian star in the new trailer for the CIA spy thriller Extraction about a deadly father-son team.

A trailer was released for the dramedy Central Intelligence, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as an undercover CIA badass who drags Kevin Hart’s unwilling office worker into a mission of world shattering importance.

TELEVISION

Noah Hawley is adapting the Kurt Vonnegut novel Cat's Cradle as a limited series for FX. The 1963 novel satirizes the Cold War arms race and plays on societal anxiety over military annihilation and increased militarization in the world.

Gotham and Blindspot were among the leading contenders in the nominations for the American Society of Cinematographers’ television awards, announced last week. Gotham received two of the five nominations in the Episode of a Regular Series category, one each for cinematographers Christopher Norr and one for Crescenzo Notarile.

ABC has announced its midseason premiere dates including The Catch, which stars The Killing's Mireille Enos as a fraud investigator who finds herself the victim of a con perpetrated by her own fiancé (Parenthood's Peter Krause), plus American Crime, Quantico, and more.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest Crime and Science Radio featured Todd Matthews of NamUs on "Identifying The Dead, Finding The Missing."

Joining Debbi Mack on Crime Cafe, author Donna Fletcher Crow chatted about her Monastery Murders series and other novels.

Robert Crais was the featured guest on Speaking of Mysteries, discussing his latest book, The Promise, the latest outing for detective Elvis Cole and supporting cast of Joe Pike, Jon Stone, Scott James and Maggie, the LAPD K-9.

This month's Crime Vault Live featured author Mark Billingham and journalist-author Michael Carlson grilling Ian Rankin about Rebus, retirement ages and his new book Even Dogs in the Wild; and there are reviews of new releases by Stephen King, Jo Nesbo and Tess Gerritsen, and much more.

On Crime Fiction FM, award-winning author Joseph Badal stopped by to discuss his new book, Death Ship,the fifth in his Danforth Saga thriller series.