MOVIES
Christopher Nolan’s 2000 breakout thriller, Memento, is getting a remake courtesy of AMBI Pictures. The original version starred Guy Pearce as a man who is tracking down his wife’s killer but suffers from a unique from of memory loss. AMBI head Monika Bacardi added that "We intend to stay true to Christopher Nolan’s vision and deliver a memorable movie that is every bit as edgy, iconic and award-worthy as the original.”
Starz subsidiary Anchor Bay Entertainment has acquired U.S. Rights to What Lola Wants, a new crime drama from The Sheinberg’s The Bubble Factory. The project focuses on Lola, the 16-year old daughter of Hollywood royalty who fakes her own kidnapping to cover her running away from home, only to get kidnapped for random money.
Morgan Freeman has signed on for Cold Warriors from Millennium Entertainment, with Raja Gosnell set to direct the spy action/comedy. Morgan will play a retired CIA agent and current stepfather who enlists the help of his video gram programmer stepson to finish a Cold War era mission.
Scott Eastwood has been cast as the brother of the character Ben Affleck will play in the upcoming prohibition-era crime drama Live By Night, based on Dennis Lehane's novel. Affleck plays Joe Coughlin, the son of a prominent police captain, who enters a world of organized crime that takes him from Boston to Florida and Havana, Cuba. Also in the cast are Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, Elle Fanning, Max Casella and Chris Cooper.
Danish actor Pilou Asbæk has landed the male lead in Rupert Sanders' adaptation of the Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell, teaming up with female lead, Scarlett Johansson. The story follows the exploits of a member of a covert ops unit of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission, which specializes in fighting technology-related crime.
To celebrate Sarah Weinman's new anthology, Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s and 1950s, New York City’s Film Forum will host a series of films in December based on the works of pioneering mid-century women crime writers. Included in the series are Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes and Don’t Bother to Knock, adapted from Charlotte Armstrong’s Mischief.
TELEVISION
Fox has put in development Crooked, described as a family soap with a procedural spine that explores the bonds – and corruption – of police brotherhood in New Orleans. The show, said to be inspired by true events, centers on a longtime corrupt detective who is busted, his cases overturned and a thousand of the city’s worst criminals are released back onto the streets, one case at a time.
Jada Pinkett Smith will star and executive produce the ABC thriller pilot Murder Town. She'll play Wilmington, Delaware’s, first African American District Attorney, who finds herself confronted by old loyalties and loves, a shocking revelation about her murdered husband, and a polarizing, racially charged case that threatens to burn her and her city to the ground.
Canada's CTV announced it has picked up a TV series based on the 2000 John Cardinal mystery book by author Giles Blunt, Forty Words for Sorrow. The project, which tells the story of the gruesome murder of a 13-year-old girl found in an abandoned mine shaft, snagged Orphan Black and Saving Hope's Aubrey Nealon as writer and showrunner and will air in late 2016 or early 2017.
Close on the heels of NBC announcing it was adding an extra episode to the first-season order for the crime drama Blindspot, comes word that the network is renewing the freshman series for a second season. The show centers on a beautiful woman (Jaimie Alexander) with no memories of her past who is found naked in Times Square with her body fully covered in intricate tattoos who must partner with the FBI to discover the truth about her identity and get to the bottom of a conspiracy.
NBC announced it is renewing both Chicago Fire and Chicago PD for the 2016-2017 season.
ABC’s Wicked City wasn't so lucky, however, becoming the first new series this fall to be yanked off the schedule. The show centered around a killing spree set against the backdrop of the sex, politics and popular culture of 1980s Los Angeles
AMC announced a return date for Better Call Saul, returning for Season 2 on Monday, Feb. 15.
Meanwhile, ABC announced its midseason schedule return dates.
Eliza Coupe (Happy Endings) is joining the cast of ABC’s Quantico, beginning with the show’s 10th episode. She'll play Hannah Wyland, a Quantico graduate whose ambition, combined with her looks and her confidence, has rocketed her past her competition.
Fox is revamping its mid-season beginning in January to accommodate American Idol, which returns for its final season, relocating Sleepy Hollow to Fridays, while Bones is being put on the bench, with a return date and slot TBD. The new drama Lucifer will be paired with The X-Files revival on Mondays.
TNT has renewed Murder In The First for a third season to air in 2016. The crime drama, created by Steven Bochco and Eric Lodal, averaged an OK 2 million viewers in its second season, which wrapped its run on August 25. Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson star.
Netflix announced an original true-crime, 10-part docuseries, Making a Murderer, which is being billed as "the most compelling American crime story you've never heard of." Set to premiere in December, the show tells the story of Steven Avery, wrongly convicted of assault and subsequently awarded millions of dollars based on the way his case was handled. But at the same time his assault case was prompting reforms to the criminal justice system, he became the prime suspect in a horrific second crime.
PODCASTS/RADIO/VIDEO
HarperCollins and the team at Killer Reads have shared a couple of videos featuring crime authors Tim Rob Smith and Mark Billingham being interviewed on their work by fellow crime writer Simon Toyne.
Debbi Mack's Crime Cafe podcast featured a Q&A with guest blogger Austin Camacho, or rather, his literary creation Hannibal Jones, a DC detective.
Crime Fiction FM welcomed debut author Sue Coletta to discuss her new book, the chilling psychological thriller, Marred.
THEATER
The 39 Steps, a "mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a dash of Monty Python," is being staged by the San Jose Stage Company from November 25 to December 20.
GAMES/APPS
TELL and Agatha Christie Productions (ACP) have launched a new storytelling app based on Christie's short story collection The Mysterious Mr Quin, starring Game of Thrones actor Gethin Anthony in the lead role. The app allows viewers not only to experience the drama but to share and comment on their favorite content. On reaching the mystery's conclusion, the audience is then able to revisit content, to uncover further details of the plot and continue piecing the puzzle together.
J.J. Abrams' production company Bad Robot has partnered with Infinity Blade developer Chair Entertainment for a video game set in the shadowy world of espionage. Spyjinx is described as "a mix of action-strategy, dynamic world-building and RPG character development," and it's coming to PC and mobile devices in 2016.
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