MOVIES
Martin Scorsese's next project is the Oscar-winning director's long-awaited return to mobster epics, The Irishman, an adaptation by Steve Zaillian (Gangs of New York) of Charles Brandt's bestselling novel. Robert De Niro will play Frank Sheeran, a high-ranking Teamster with ties to the Bufalino crime family, who confessed that he killed fellow Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, whose body was never found. Al Pacino also is on board the long-gestating project, and The Irishman would mark the first collaboration between the actor and fellow gangster-movie icon Scorsese.
Mila Kunis and Bryan Cranston are attached to star in the Will Gluck-helmed comedic thriller Jackpot, a remake of a 2011 Norwegian film directed by Magnus Martens based on a Jo Nesbo story. Jennifer Garner is also in talks to join the project that opens with a man who wakes up in a strip bar clutching a shotgun surrounded by dead men and police guns aimed at him.
Universal Pictures is teaming up with screenwriter James Vanderbilt to craft a series of movies based on the works of Robert Ludlum, the best-selling author behind the studio’s hit Jason Bourne spy franchise. First up in this universe will be the adaptation of Ludlum's The Janson Directive, which will star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The story centers on Paul Janson, a former operative and best private security consultant in the world, who is framed for the murder of a prominent Nobel laureate and must join forces with the protege sent to kill him in order to survive.
John Cusack is in negotiations to star in the chase thriller Misfortune, playing Miller, a businessman embezzles a client’s money, leaves his family and everything behind to start a new life. Everything goes according to plan until he is separated from his cash in the middle of the wilderness, where three young friends stumble upon it. Miller, desperate and violent, will do anything to get it back.
Italy’s Colorado Films is teaming up with bestselling author Donato Carrisi, whose serial killer thriller The Whisperer has sold millions of copies around the world, to form a new company specialized in producing Italian thrillers for the international film and TV market. Not surprisingly, the short-term focus of the company's production roster will be two Carrisi books including The Whisperer, which takes its cue from six severed arms found arranged in a circle in a forest clearing, and The Girl in the Fog, about the disappearance of a teen girl in the Alps.
Sean Bean and Patrick Sabongui are set to star in Jason Bourque's action-thriller film Drone. The project centers on Neil (Bean), a high-level private drone contractor whose family doesn't know about his secret life until an enigmatic Pakistani businessman tracks him down, believing Neil to be responsible for the deaths of his wife and child. A harrowing confrontation takes place in Neil's house, which proves to be far more complex than a simple act of revenge.
Noomi Rapace is in negotiations to join Will Smith and Joel Edgerton in David Ayer's Bright, to be written and directed by Max Landis for Netflix. Bright is described as a cop thriller with fantasy elements, including orcs and fairies.
TELEVISION
Fox is already tweaking their fall schedule, with plans to move the Prison Break reboot and also Bones to mid-season debuts, mostly to make way for new baseball drama Pitch, which would be a natural follow-on to the network's Major League Baseball coverage.
Ewan McGregor is the latest feature actor who will star in FX’s Emmy-winning anthology series Fargo. McGregor will play the two central characters — brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy — in the upcoming third season, which is supposed to be set closer to present day than the first two installments.
Netflix has nabbed worldwide rights to the Jeremy Rush-directed action thriller Wheelman starring Frank Grillo as a getaway driver who is double crossed during a bank robbery. When plans go south, it is up to him to find out who betrayed him while he races to survive with a car full of money and his family on the line.
Netflix (in partnership with Univision) is also developing a series based on the life of infamous drug lord, El Chapo, made famous after a high-profile prison escape, his controversial interview with Sean Penn, and his subsequent recapture last year.
Fans of the long-running CSI franchise shows may be able to breathe a sigh of relief; after CBS announced they'd cancelled the last-remaining series, CSI: Cyber, the network hinted that the show "may come back in another incarnation." According to Deadline, the producers of the billion-dollar drama franchise also have been open to revisiting it and, after a break, that may happen.
USA Network has released the first trailer for the action thriller series Shooter, based on a character created by Stephen Hunter and featured in a novel Point of Impact. (HT to Omnimystery News.)
The USA Network released trailers for two of its new fall series including Shooter, starring Ryan Phillippe as an expert marksman living in exile who is coaxed back into action after learning of a plot to kill the president, and also the psychological thriller Falling Water.
CBS released a trailer for Michael Weatherly’s new show, Bull, in which Weatherly plays Dr. Jason Bull, the founder of a very successful trial consulting firm. Bull is actually based on the early work of Dr. Phil McGraw, who ran his own trial consulting firm before becoming a talk show host. The network also dropped trailers for several other of its new shows, including the MacGuyer reboot and Training Day.
ABC released trailers for their new fall shows, including Conviction, Designated Survivor, Notorious, and Time After Time.
Confused about the fall television schedule and which shows are new or returning and on which nights? The Wrap has a handy guide for you. Or if you prefer it in grid format, here you go.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Cybersecurity expert Fred Bedrich and ethical hacker Michel Cusin stopped by 2nd Sunday Crime co chat with host Libby Hellmann about cyber security, why it's such a threat, and what they do to deal with it.
Suspense Radio welcomed author Ryan Quinn to discuss his thriller featuring ex-CIA operative Kera Mersal, The Good Traitor.
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