Start off your Thanksgiving week with the latest crime drama news:
MOVIES
Awesomeness Films is adapting Teresa Toten’s YA novel Beware That Girl, eyeing Elle Fanning for the starring role. Cut from the same cloth as psychological thrillers Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, the film follows two girls at an elite Manhattan private school as they manipulate each other in a game of cat and mouse: Kate is a scholarship student who survives by lying her way into friendships with wealthy classmates while Olivia is the "it" girl of the Upper East Side with a dark and mysterious past. When a charming and handsome new faculty member joins their school, the girls are forced to bring their secrets to light.
Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey is in negotiations to take a critical role in White Boy Rick from director Yann Demange. The film is based on a spec script by Logan and Noah Miller that's based on the real-life story of Richard Wershe Jr. Set in the mid-1980s, the story follows Wershe Jr. when he became an undercover informant for local and federal law enforcement agencies at the age of 14 only later to become a major drug dealer, arrested after officers found 17 pounds of cocaine on him (at the age of 17), receiving a sentence of life in prison. McConaughey is being eyed for the role of the senior Wershe, a blue-collar factory worker, struggling with the collapse of the auto industry as he tries to keep his family together.
Screenwriter Derek Kolstad is teaming up with Alan and Peter Riche to take on an adaptation of Tim Lebbon's novel Endure. Pitched as an intense and relentless action thriller in the vein of Deliverance and The Most Dangerous Game, the story centers on a female lead out to get revenge on a group that organizes human trophy hunts for the elite and wealthy, and may be responsible for the disappearance of her husband. It’s being pitched as a potential franchise-starter that could introduce the world to a female John Wick.
Laurence Fishburne is set to star alongside Royalty Hightower in the indie film Ruby In Murdertown, a crime thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of Leah Rachel, who also wrote the script. Production on the indie is slated for next year. Hightower, the 11-year old who had a breakout turn in the Sundance film The Fits (and was just nominated by the Gotham Awards in the Breakthrough Actor category), plays a young drifter driving around in her '77 Chevy Caprice, who decides to take action after her father (Fishburne) is framed for murder in a crime-ridden Midwest wasteland.
Scott Adkins, who was recently seen in Doctor Strange, has joined the cast of Accident Man, based on a character from the graphic novel by Pat Mills and Tony Skinner. He joins Ray Stevenson, Ashley Greene, David Paymer, Amy Johnston, Ray Park and Michael Jai White in the film, which is directed by Jesse Johnson and set to go into production this month in the UK. Stu Small co-wrote the script (with Adkins) which follows the story of hitman Mike Fallon, known for making assassinations look like unfortunate accidents. His cavalier attitude changes the day his ex-girlfriend, Beth, is murdered by his own crew.
Forest Whitaker is in talks to join Johnny Depp in Labyrinth, the real-life drama based on the criminal investigation behind the murders of rap legends Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. Whitaker would play a journalist who teams with Depp's disgraced LAPD detective, who has been unable to solve the mysterious deaths of two of hip-hop's biggest stars. The project is based on journalist Randall Sullivan’s book LAbyrinth - A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records’ Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal.
At least one of the original male stars from Ocean's Eleven is headed to the (mostly) all -female spinoff in the franchise, Ocean's Eight. Matt Damon will have a bit part in the upcoming film, which stars an army of illustrious A-listers ranging from Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock to Anne Hathaway and Rihanna.
Mark Wahlberg, J.K. Simmons, John Goodman and Kevin Bacon go on a manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers in the new trailer for Patriots Day, based on the true story of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
TELEVISION
Amazon Studios picked up the Hitchcockian spec script Holland, Michigan, with Peter Dealbert attached to produce. Written by Andrew Sodroski, the thriller centers on a housewife in the midwest who suspects her husband is having an affair, but as the story unfolds, she learns that her husband might be leading a secret life. Errol Morris was previously announced as director and Bryan Cranston, Naomi Watts, and Edgar Ramirez are attached to star. Amazon is looking to start production in the spring.
The team behind fantasy procedural drama Grimm are developing a new series for NBC titled Treasure. The mystery series follows a group of grad students in Washington, DC who accidentally uncovers a 40-year-old secret which leads them on a wild ride through real history as they attempt to unravel an unsolved murder, find hidden blood money, and avoid being killed by an assassin from the past.
Fox has put in development the legal drama Hawk from Rosewood executive producer Andy Berman and creator/executive producer Todd Harthan.Written by Berman, Hawk is described as a law show with a twist, centering on a con man with special skills, who tries to reconcile his criminal past when he becomes the in-house legal investigator for the glossy LA firm he almost took down.
BBC America greenlit an eight-episode dramatic thriller series Killing Eve to premiere in 2018. Based on the novellas by Luke Jennings, Killing Eve revolves around Villanelle, a psychopathic assassin, and Eve, the woman charged with hunting her down. Eve is a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade security services operative whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. Villanelle is an elegant, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her. The two fiercely intelligent women, equally obsessed with each other, go head to head in an epic game of cat and mouse.
In other news from The Beeb, AMC has closed a co-production deal with BBC Worldwide North America for BBC One's drama series McMafia created and written by Oscar-nominated Hossein Amini (Drive) and James Watkins (The Woman in Black) and starring James Norton (Grantchester, War & Peace). Inspired by Misha Glenny's 2008 best-selling book, the organized crime series that centers on the English-raised son of Russian exiles with a mafia history, who has spent his life trying to escape the shadow of that criminal past, building his own legitimate business and forging a life with his girlfriend Rebecca. But when his family’s past murderously returns to threaten them, Alex is drawn into the criminal world and forced to confront his values to protect those he loves. The series will also star David Strathairn, Juliet Rylance, Aleksey Serebryakov, Marie Shukshina, and Faye Marsay.
Meanwhile, UK's ITV has given the green-light to Bancroft, a four-part police thriller with two women at its heart: Elizabeth Bancroft, a respected DCI who has given her life to the police force and is trusted and adored by her colleagues; and DS Katherine Stevens, an ambitious, fast-tracked recruit whose assignment to cold cases disturbs the ghosts of the past including those among the lives of her colleagues.
Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: SVU) is set to star in an unusual drama for Syfy titled Happy!. Meloni will play Nick Sax, once the top detective in a big city police department but after losing everything he holds dear, he becomes a hit man for the mob and uses his earnings for drugs and booze on the wrong side of town. Sax manages to survive a hit that goes horribly wrong...only to have his life changed forever when he begins to see an imaginary blue-winged horse.
One longtime cast member of Hawaii Five-0 is moving on, as Masi Oka, who plays Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Max Bergman on the CBS police procedural, will be leaving the show after seven seasons as a series regular. The show's creative team insist that Max's story arc will be given a proper conclusion on the show as he rides off to greener pastures.
The CW network announced its midseason schedule, and things don't look good for the freshman show Frequency, which has essentially been canceled and will have its finale Wednesday, Jan. 25. Peyton List stars as NYPD Detective Raimy Sullivan who discovers she is able to speak to her deceased father Frank Sullivan in 1996 via his old ham radio. Her attempts to save his life trigger the "butterfly effect", changing the present in unforeseen ways and to fix the damage, she must work with her father across time to solve a decades-old murder case.
Fox released a trailer for the final season of Bones, which premieres January 3.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Libby Fischer Hellmann, who hosts the Second Sunday Crime podcast, had the tables turned as Authors on the Air host Pam Stack interviewed Libby about her thirteen thrillers and numerous short stories, as well as what it's like to be a writer in this brave new world of publishing.
The Thrill Seekers podcast welcomed Charles Belfoure,the bestselling author of The Paris Architect and House of Thieves, who is also an architect by profession.
A Stab in the Dark's Mark Billingham chatted with Michael Connelly as the two crime writers discussed U.S. crime drama, Raymond Chandler, jazz versus country and Michael's adaptations which star Titus Welliver, Matthew McConaughey and Clint Eastwood. Paul Hirons also spoke with to Rosewood's leading man Morris Chestnut, who reveals what it's like to work with co-star Jaina Lee Ortiz and what a location gives to a crime drama.
Crime Cafe host and author Debbi Mack interviewed thriller author Reece Hirsch on the Crime Cafe podcast.
THEATER
The Vertigo Theatre, located at the base of the Calgary Tower in the heart of downtown Calgary, is staging a production of Agatha Christie’s mystery classic The Hollow, as part of the company's BD&P Mystery Theatre series. The story follows an unhappy game of romantic follow-the-leader that explodes into murder one weekend at The Hollow, home of Sir Henry and Lucy Angkatell.
A pairing of one-act thrillers by Agatha Christie, The Rats and The Patient, are heading to the West Valley Playhouse in Canoga Park, California, opening on November 26 with a run through December 18. The Rats is about an adulterous pair of lovers who are asked individually, to a London flat for drinks but soon realize that they have been set up as victims, while The Patient deals with a woman severely injured in a fall (an accident, attempted murder, or suicide?) who's unable to speak, but with the aid of Dr Ginsberg's ingenius device, tries to solve the attempted murder.
GAMES
Put your detective skills to the test with Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders, a point-and-tap mystery adventure that seamlessly moves participants through the classic murder novel in the shoes of Christie’s famous protagonist, Hercule Poirot. Players take on the role of Poirot, an eccentric Belgian detective with a Watson-like assistant and a sharp mind, and are tasked with figuring out the identity of a serial killer who chooses his victims based on the first three letters of the alphabet.
