MOVIES
Five of the eight Academy Awards Best Picture nominations just announced were based on or themed around books. The nominations were also heavy on action-adventure movies, including multiple nods for The Revenant (12), Mad Max: Fury Road (10), The Martian (7), and Bridge of Spies (6). As usual, there were plenty of surprises, snubs, and controversy (mainly, the lack of diversity on the list).
New Line Cinema has acquired rights to Keep Calm, the first novel by filmmaker Mike Binder. Binder (who recently directed Black Or White with Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer), will write and direct the film, which is an action thriller that mixes current events, politics, conspiracy and terrorism within 10 Downing Street.
Bruce Willis will appear in more of Die Hard 6 than previously rumored. The sixth installment to the action franchise, Die Hard: Year One, has been pitched a prequel focused on a younger John McClane. But Willis recently said that the film will be more of a prequel/sequel hybrid (combining modern day and the origin story) "that I really haven’t seen before and is incredibly different."
TELEVISION
NBC is eyeing a third "Chicago" spinoff program to add to Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., and Chicago Med, this time one centered on the legal profession. Discussions are still in the conceptual stage and there is no script or writer attached for the spinoff, but key characters for Chicago Law could be introduced the other programs, as had happened in the past.
Fox has given a pilot order to a Jack Bauer-less 24: Legacy, a rebooted show that will feature an all new set of characters, while potentially existing in the same universe as its predecessor. The story line will center on a military hero coming home to the U.S. who must ask CTU for assistance in keeping him safe, as well as in thwarting what has the potential to be the biggest terrorist attack this country has ever seen. The network also announced that Legacy won't have a white lead and will be replaced by a non-white actor who will be “as different from Jack Bauer as possible.”
Fox also announced Prison Break will be returning to the air in an "event series," with stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell both signed on to reprise the roles of brothers Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows. The original producing team of creator Paul T. Scheuring, Neal Moritz, Marty Adelstein and Dawn Olmstead are all aboard for the event series, and Scheuring will again write and showrun.
CBS' new Nancy Drew will look very different if the network moves forward with the reboot, according to CBS Entertainment president Glenn Geller. It's not been decided whether Nancy will be African-American, Asian-American or Latino, but Geller said she will "not [be] Caucasian. I'd be open to any ethnicity."
Although the future of Bones is still very much up in the air, Fox chairman and CEO Dana Walden said the show will receive a “satisfying ending," and could possibly get one more season.
Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin are to star in BBC One's adaptation of Apple Tree Yard, the "provocative, audacious thriller" by Louise Doughty. Made by Kudos (the producers of Broadchurch), Apple Tree Yard is a thriller that centers on Watson's character, Yvonne Carmichael, a married woman with two grown-up children who lives a contented, conventional suburban life. But that world spirals into chaos when a chance encounter leads to an impulsive and passionate affair with a charismatic stranger, played by Chaplin.
On season 2 of Amazon Prime’s Bosch, tough LAPD detective Harry Bosch will come out his shell, according to Michael Connelly, upon whose novels the show is based. The new season will kick off with Bosch heading to Las Vegas after discovering a body in a car trunk on Mulholland Drive and will borrow from such Bosch books as The Drop and The Last Coyote. Also, “an interesting woman played by Jeri Ryan” becomes a noirish addition to the cast per co-writer Eric Overmyer. Bosch returns to Amazon Prime on March 11.
On Monday, Fox released the first minute of the first episode of the forthcoming X-Files revival. It's a succinct catch-up of Mulder's (David Duchovny) history told through photos and voiceover: how he became obsessed with paranormal science, his work with the X-Files unit of the FBI, the temptation of Scully (Gillian Anderson), and the dissolution of the unit in 2002.
FX’s critically-aclaimed 1980s Russian spy drama The Americans is returning for its fourth season at 10 PM Wednesday, March 16, the network recently announced. FX also unveiled its Season 4 poster featuring series stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell.
A trailer was released for the upcoming drama Houdini & Doyle, an early 20th-century-set detective/mystery series featuring the real-life friendship between magician Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, re-imagined as a crime-solving partnership.
VIDEO/PODCASTS/RADIO
The latest Crime and Science Radio was "Tracking Down the Bad Guys: A Conversation with Retired US Marshal and Novelist Marc Cameron."
Debbi Mack welcomed author of paranormal, horror, thriller, and crime fiction, W. D. Gagliani, to chat about his Nick Lupo paranormal thriller/crime fiction series and other works on Crime Cafe.
The Thrilling Reads podcast snagged author James P. Sumner about his debut thriller, True Conviction.
New York Times bestselling author Laurence Shames stopped by Crime Fiction FM to discuss his new book, the eleventh in his wildly entertaining Key West Capers series, Key West Luck.
This is Criminal hosted journalist Martha Elliot about her book, The Man in the Monster. The work takes a look at Michael Ross, the first person in Connecticut to be sentenced to death since 1960 - who claimed he wanted to die in order to atone for what he had done. Elliot spent twenty years trying to figure out whether his remorse was real.
THEATER
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, the 2013 musical by John Rapson and Kevin Massey, has opened at the Kennedy Center with a run through January 30. The show centers on Monty Navarro (played by Kevin Massey), an earnest young bachelor living a quiet life in remote England. Grieving over the recent death of his mother, he discovers that he is a distant relative of, and possible heir to the famous D’Ysquith family. Resolved to avenge his late mother, who was cast out by the D’Ysquiths, Navarro seeks out the six other heirs to the D’Ysquith fortune (all played by Rapson), embarking on a journey of love, murder, and a hint of revenge.
The Agatha Christie Theatre Company has been performing plays based on the Queen of Crime's works since 2006 at The Theatre Royal Windsor, but the troupe has formally disbanded. However, this doesn't mean the end of crime dramas at the theater; the owner is branching out into works by other authors and playwrights, starting with Rehearsal for Murder, written by Richard Levinson and William Link, the prolific and award-winning duo behind such TV shows as Columbo and Murder, She Wrote.
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