Media Murder for Monday

Here's a roundup of the latest crime drama news from the big and small screens:

MOVIES

Quentin Tarantino is developing a film about the notorious Manson Family murders of five people, including pregnant actor Sharon Tate. Tarantino is courting A-list talent for the ensemble cast, including his Inglourious Basterds star Brad Pitt for the role of the detective investigating the crime, and both Margot Robbie and Jennifer Lawrence for the role of Tate. Talks are also underway to snare Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio for roles in the project.

Joe Pesci has officially joined Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s Jimmy Hoffa disappearance film The Irishman. Pesci will portray Russell Bufalino, a Mafia boss out of Pennsylvania who has been long suspected of having a hand in the Hoffa’s disappearance. Also in talks are Harvey Keitel and Bobby Cannavale, although their potential roles have not been announced.

Martin Scorsese is reteaming with Leonardo DiCaprio to develop a film adaptation of the true-crime thriller Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. The project is based on the bestselling book by David Grann, a staff writer for the New Yorker and a script has reportedly been drafted by veteran Oscar-winning scribe Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). The story focuses on a string of murders of members of the Osage nation in 1920s Oklahoma after oil was discovered beneath their land, a case that became one of the fledgling FBI’s first major homicide investigations.

Blake Lively is set to star in an espionage thriller from James Bond producers EON Productions and IM Global, titled, The Rhythm Section, an adaptation of the first book in Mark Burnell’s four novel series. The story follows heroine Stephanie Patrick, whose family dies in an airplane crash on a flight she was meant to be on. When she discovers the crash was not an accident, she seeks to uncover the truth by adapting the identity of an assassin to track down those responsible.

The Scarface reboot continues to experience a few bumps in the production road. Suicide Squad director David Ayer joined the project in May after Antoine Fuqua dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, but now Ayer, too, has decided to leave the project. Scarface is still scheduled for release on August 10, 2018, and the search for a director will ramp up in the coming days.

TELEVISION

Crime dramas were well represented in the 2017 Emmy Award nominations announced last week, almost sweeping the category of Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, which include Ewan McGregor (Fargo); Robert DeNiro (Madoff); Riz Ahmed and John Turturro (The Night Of); and Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), along with Geoffrey Rush (Einstein). Felicity Huffman was also nominated in the Best Lead Actress, Limited Series/Movie for her work in American Crime, along with Carrie Coon (Fargo). The list of other crime-related nods is rather long, so check out the full list at the Emmy website.

In competitive bidding, Showtime has landed Guantanamo, a drama series that will start with a 10-episode first season. Oliver Stone is poised to direct the two-hour opening episode in what marks the three-time Oscar winning filmmaker’s first foray in scripted television. Guantanamo focuses on the detainees held in the world’s most controversial prison and those who defend and condemn them.

Netflix and Canal+ in France have ordered Safe, a thriller from author Harlan Coben starring Dextrer's Michael C. Hall. Hall will play a British pediatric surgeon raising two teenage daughters, Jenny and Carrie, alone after the death of his wife. The family is seemingly safe inside a gated community when the elder daughter sneaks out to a party and a murder and disappearance follow, changing all of their lives. Amanda Abbington (Sherlock) will also star in the show.

Toni Collette's Vocab Films and RadicalMedia are adapting Julia Dahl's novel Invisible City into a series, with Collette already writing the pilot script. The actress optioned the book and will serve as executive producer along with Jen Turner. Dahl's novel centers on Rebekah Roberts, whose mother, an Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her Christian boyfriend and newborn baby to return to her religion. Now a recent college graduate, Rebekah has moved to New York City to follow her dream of becoming a big-city reporter, but her coverage of a story involving a murdered Hasidic woman takes her into some uneasy truths and dangerous territory.

Micheal Neeson, Lance Henriksen (Alien), and Michael Rabe (The Leftovers) have signed on to the adaptation of Big Dogs, a project based on Adam Dunn’s futuristic crime books. Also joining the cast are Manny Perez (Homeland, Luke Cage) and Brett Cullen (Narcos). The series is set in a violent, decaying New York City torn by financial collapse, race riots, and a surging crime wave, where an underworld economy of illegal, debauchery-ridden nightclubs linked by a web of taxicabs is thriving. Neeson, in his first lead role, will play Renny, a young fashion photographer moving drugs through the taxi network for the party circuit, who’s forced to step up his game to a dangerous degree by his boss, Reza, the local front man for an international crime syndicate that’s looking to take over the city.

Carter, a light-hearted detective procedural starring Jerry O’Connell as a former actor who played a detective on TV, has been picked up to air in Canada on Bravo, the specialty channel owned by Bell Media (not to be confused with the American cable channel owned by NBCUniversal). Carter follows O’Connell’s character, Harley Carter, as somebody who goes back to his small Canadian hometown after a public meltdown. However, everybody back home mistakes him as the detective he played on TV, and while he knows he’s not a real detective, he can’t seem to stop picking up cases.

Netflix revealed new details about the third season of the drug cartel series, Narcos, which is shifting its focus to the successors of Pablo Escobar. Season three of the drug cartel series will not only introduce the successor to Pablo Escobar — Wagner Moura's famous kingpin was gunned down after a two-season manhunt — the Netflix series is also returning without half of the show's buddy-cop duo. Boyd Holbrook, who played the other real DEA agent on which the show is based, won't be returning as Steve Murphy.

Young actress Lulu Wilson has landed a series-regular spot in HBO’s Amy Adams-starring drama Sharp Objects, based on Gillian Flynn’s novel. The plot centers around Camille Preaker’s (Adams) return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. Trying to put together a psychological puzzle from her past, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims a bit too closely. The 11-year-old Wilson will play Marian Preaker, Camille’s dead sister, who appears in flashbacks to their childhood.

One of the stars of Chicago P.D. who left his series to join the new and now canceled spinoff, Chicago Justice, is returning to the fold. Jon Seda will return to Chicago P.D. in the fall when Season 5 kicks off as a regular, reprising his role of Antonio Dawson.

A&E is betting on Live PD in a big way, by ordering 100 additional three-hour live episodes of the real-time reality police docuseries, extending its run into 2018 and bringing its episode total to 142. Hosted by Dan Abrams with analysis from Tom Morris Jr., Live PD follows diverse police departments from across the country in real time as they patrol their communities on a typical Friday and Saturday night.

The first trailer was released for the new adaptation of Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes, which follows Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson), a retired police detective who gets drawn back into the field when demented murderer Brady Hartsfield (Harry Treadaway) starts taunting him with a series of emails. This sends Detective Hodges on an off-the-books — and at times illegal — quest to bring this criminal, who mowed down a group of people with a Mercedes, to justice.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed award-winning and best-selling thriller author John Gilstrap to discuss his new release, Final Target, the next entry in his Jonathan Grave series.

Award winning Margaret Maron, author of twenty-seven novels and two collections of short stories, discussed her mysteries on Authors on the Air. 

Host Alex Dolan of Thrill Seekers chatted with author Riley Sager, whose debut novel, Final Girls, was called "The First Great Thriller of 2017" by Stephen King.

Player FM interviewed Jeff Cohen, author of the Asperger mystery book series.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste welcomed special guest Gerard Brennan to talk about becoming a doctor, writing short stories and how they differ from novels, and whether a MMA star has any chance against an elite boxer in the ring, among other things.

Story Works Round Table hosts Alida and Kathryn welcomed cozy mystery author, Sara Rosett, to discuss plotting mysteries.