Media Murder for Monday

Monday means it's time again for the weekly roundup of the latest crime drama news from stage and screen:

MOVIES

In a deal from the Los Angeles Film Festival, Vertical Entertainment acquired U.S. rights to the psychological thriller Never Here, with plans for a theatrical release in fourth-quarter 2017 followed by a pay TV debut on Starz in early 2018. The project is written and directed by Camille Thoman and centers on Miranda (Mireille Enos), an installation artist who follows, photographs and documents the lives of strangers to create her art. One night her secret lover witnesses a violent act from Miranda’s apartment window, so to protect his identity, Miranda poses as the primary witness, making statements to the police about a crime she did not see. Also in the cast are Sam Shepard, Goran Visnjic, Vincent Piazza, Nina Arianda, Ana Nogueira, and Desmin Borges.

Michelle Monaghan, whose character married Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible III and who made another appearance in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, is returning for Paramount and Skydance’s next installment of the franchise. The announcement was made by writer-director Christopher McQuarrie vis his Instagram account.

At the End of the Tunnel, a thriller described as a Spanish-language Rear Window homage, was the big winner at the 43rd annual Seattle International Film Festival. Attendees of the festival named it both best film and best director (Rodrigo Grande) in the audience-voted Golden Space Needle awards.

A new trailer was released for Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, the thriller starring John Boyega, Will Poulter, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, John Krasinski and Anthony Mackie. The film is based on the true story of the terrifying 1967 civil unrest, which took plays over five summer days in the Michigan city.

TELEVISION

Lionsgate is developing a TV series spin-off of the John Wick film franchise called The Continental. The prequel will be a "cool, Wick-ian, magical, and mysterious world" built around the Continental, a hotel chain for training and supporting assassins.

USA is returning to the character-based comedic crime genre where it had a lot of success early on with series like Monk and Psych, with Olive Forever, which follows the exploits of Olive, a mysterious high school student with an affection for cat burglary-type shenanigans, mostly because she is a cat burglar. New to a sleepy town with a criminal underbelly, Olive must navigate new foster parents, new boyfriends, new gangsters…and new crime opportunities.

FX has picked up the hour-long drama Honey from Gerard Barrett, according to Deadline. Details about the drama haven't been released, but the story will take place in the world of corporate espionage.

Two cast members are leaving Quantico. Yasmine Al Massri, who played twin FBI recruits Nimah and Raina on the first two seasons of ABC drama series Quantico, will not return for Season 3. The actress announced her departure on Instagram earlier this week. Shortly afterward, the show announced that Pearl Thusi, who joined Quantico last season, will also not be returning.

When Criminal Minds brought Season 12 to a close last month, the fates of several major characters were up in the air. Thanks to last-minute contract negotiations, fans can breathe a sigh of relief since Criminal Minds announced that actresses Kirsten Vangsness and A.J. Cook have both successfully negotiated raises for their contracts, confirming their returns.

James Martinez (House of Cards) is set for a recurring role in TNT’s crime-drama series Major Crimes, playing the sociopathic father of a potential kidnap victim, a man who started a second family without ever informing them he had a son from another marriage. He joins an ensemble cast that includes Mary McDonnell, Tony Denison, Michael Paul Chan, Phillip P. Keene and Raymond Cruz.

TNT’s Snowpiercer just added Alison Wright to the cast as a series regular, joining the already-hired Jennifer Connelly. The new show was ordered to pilot by TNT and will center around the same premise as the acclaimed 2013 thriller of the same name, which was adapted from the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the only remaining humans are aboard the globe-circling Snowpiercer train.

Grey’s Anatomy alum Sandra Oh has landed the title role in BBC America’s original eight-part scripted series Killing Eve. Oh’s Eve is a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade security services operative whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. The other main character is Villanelle (not yet cast), an elegant, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her.

FX is reshuffling the order of the upcoming two installments of American Crime Story. The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which is far along into production, will now air as a second season of the anthology series, with a premiere date tentative slated for early 2018, followed by Katrina, whose filming has been pushed to early 2018. It is unclear whether all big-name actors who had been locked for Katrina, including Annette Bening, Dennis Quaid, and Matthew Broderick, will still be available to do the series on the new timetable.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The Guardian books podcast featured Scottish crime fiction with Ann Cleeves and Chris Brookmyre as they investigated the murky world of tartan noir.

A CBC panel of Margaret Cannon, J D Singh, and P K Rangachari discussed the best crime fiction for summer reading.

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed best-selling author Tim Hallinan to the studio to discuss his new book Pulped, which features his private eye Simeon Grist, with a twist: Grist has found out he's a fictional character, the books he's featured in are going out of print, and one of his last remaining readers in the real world has just been murdered. So he sets out to solve the crime.

Episode 6 of the Writer Types podcast featured interviews with Meg Gardiner, Jordan Harper, John Rector, and Thomas Pluck; book recommendations from indie booksellers; an a short story by Angel Luis Colon.

The latest installment of A Stab in the Dark included best-selling authors Sarah Hilary and Belinda Bauer, who discussed the creation of Sarah’s complex heroine Marnie Rome and Belinda’s unique and vulnerable heroes.

THEATER

In Degrees of Error's interactive Murder, She Didn't Write, the audience becomes the author as they are invited to help to create their very own Agatha Christie-inspired masterpiece - and to watch it unfold on stage. Every night, the company creates a unique space where audiences can unleash their literary prowess and create an original improvised murder-mystery. Founded in 2010, Degrees of Error have recently been appointed as the first resident theatre company at the brand new Bristol Improv Theatre, the first theatre in Britain dedicated to the art of improv. Murder, She Didn't Write runs through August on Sunday nights as part of Edinburgh Festival's Fringe.

GAMES

Sony announced a new social multiplayer experience for its PlayStation 4 console called PlayLink, which will use iOS and Android devices as extensions of gameplay happening on the console. The games offered through PlayLink include "Hidden Agenda," which tasks up to six friends with navigating a gritty crime drama by guiding a detective and a district attorney through dangerous traps left behind by a serial killer called "The Trapper." Similar to Supermassive's PS4 game Until Dawn, players will have to use quick-thinking decision making to help each character survive to the end of the story, but a voting mechanic will weigh the characters' decisions toward whichever option receives the most votes.