Welcome to Monday, my friends, and the latest update of crime drama news:
AWARDS
The Critics' Choice Awards, voted on by critical bodies the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association, were handed out last Thursday. In the crime drama realm, Sam Rockwell won a Best Supporting Actor nod for his role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and the film also won the Best Acting Ensemble Award. Over on the TV side, Big Little Lies won for Best Limited Series, and the Bernie Madoff biopic, The Wizard of Lies, was awarded Best TV Movie. Big Little Lies also pulled in acting nods for Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Alexander Skarsgard, while Ewan McGregor was named Best Actor in a TV Movie for Fargo.
MOVIES
Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, which is set around the time of the Charles Manson murders. The structure is said to resemble a Pulp Fiction-esque ensemble piece, with the Oscar winner playing an aging actor in 1969 Los Angeles whose life intersects with the murders. Margot Robbie is also being eyed for the role of Sharon Tate.
Oscar-winning Moonlight director Barry Jenkins is set to direct Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman in Expatriate, an international thriller set around a 1970s plane hijacking. Boseman wrote the script with his writing partner Logan Coles.
Legendary Entertainment has made a deal with Emmy-nominated Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown to star in and produce a feature film series based on Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes Mystery novels that began with the 2006 title The Case of the Missing Marquess. The series revolves around mysteries investigated by Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes’ much younger sister, Enola, who proves to be a highly capable detective in her own right.
Screen Media Films has nabbed North American distribution rights to director Eric England’s thriller Josie, toplined by Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner, Dylan McDermott, and Jack Kilmer. The film, based on a script by Anthony Ragnone, will be released in March and follows the tattooed, sweet-talking stranger Josie (Turner) who, upon arriving to a small, southern town, strikes up relationships with local young punk Marcus (Kilmer) and her loner neighbor Hank (McDermott). She quickly becomes a hot topic of local gossip, but her true intentions for arriving in town are far more sinister when her dark past comes to light.
Two more big names have signed on for Drew Goddard’s upcoming "noir thriller," Bad Times At The El Royale, with Dakota Johnson and Russell Crowe both joining the already impressive cast that includes Jeff Bridges and Chris Hemsworth. There is no synopsis for the film as yet, with only the vaguest of details given for the plot so far. It is reportedly set in the 1960s at a rundown motel near Lake Tahoe in California, which attracts a motely group of strangers for an unknown reason.
Clive Owen is in talks to join Will Smith in Ang Lee’s upcoming clone assassin movie Gemini Man, with Smith starring as an aging assassin fighting his own clone who is 25 years younger than he and at the peak of his abilities.
Bleeker Street has released the first trailer for their upcoming film Beirut, directed by The Machinist helmer Brad Anderson and based on a script written by Bourne Trilogy scribe Tony Gilroy. Set in 1982, John Hamm stars as a diplomat and negotiator who receives a mission from the CIA to negotiate for the life of a friend he left behind. The film also stars Rosamund Pike, Dean Norris, Larry Pine, and Shea Whigham.
Jennifer Lawrence is featured in the new trailer for the upcoming thriller Red Sparrow, starring Lawrence as Dominika Egorovaa, prima ballerina turned assassin with an intense mastery over seduction and manipulation.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
The John Wick franchise is heading for the small screen. Starz and Lionsgate are teaming to develop The Continental, a television series adaptation of the highly successful Lionsgate film franchise. The Continental will be set in the John Wick universe, focusing on the inner workings of the exclusive Continental Hotel which serves as a refuge for assassins. Writer/producer Chris Collins (Sons of Anarchy, The Wire, The Man in the High Castle) will write the series and serve as showrunner, with the team behind the film franchise executive producing, including John Wick star Keanu Reeves.
Former Hawaii Five-0 star Daniel Dae Kim's production company 3AD is creating First Rule of Ten, a show based on a mystery novel series by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay. The story follows a young monk, who after years spent struggling with the teachings of his Tibetan monastery, leaves to find his identity in the unlikeliest of places – Los Angeles. There, he’s forced to reconcile the differences between the Buddhist teachings he’s grown up with and the new fast-paced lifestyle filled with temptations. His path to self-discovery becomes further complicated when he witnesses a brutal crime and becomes inextricably entwined in its investigation.
The streaming network Sony Crackle announced two new series including the crime drama The Butcher, produced by Gary Oldman and Douglas Urbanski. Written by Charles Burmeister, The Butcher follows Los Angeles homicide detective Mitch Dixon as he attempts to find, hunt down, and kill a serial killer who has discovered the key to immortality, the price of which is consuming human flesh.
NBC has ordered the drama pilot, In Between Lives, from Madam Secretary co-executive producer Moira Kirland, Heyday Television (the joint venture of Harry Potter producer David Heyman), and NBCUniversal. Written by Kirland, In Between Lives centers on a mysterious young woman who reluctantly uses her gift of clairvoyance to help a veteran LAPD detective and a damaged ex-FBI outsider solve the most unnerving and challenging cases the city encounters. This eerie ability also opens the door for her to see and talk to the dead, who are seeking help for unresolved problems, whether she likes it or not.
Doctor Who and Victoria actress Jenna Coleman has been cast to star in a new four-part BBC drama to be filmed in Scotland and Australia. The psychological thriller The Cry will also star Australian actor Ewen Leslie and is adapted from the novel by Helen FitzGerald about a couple dealing with the trauma of their baby being abducted from a small Australian town.
Bill Nighy has been hired for a role in the to-be-re-shot scenes for the BBC Agatha Christie drama Ordeal By Innocence. The move comes after Ed Westwick was hired to replace actor Christian Cooke following sexual misconduct allegations against Westwick, which the actor strongly denies.
Sony Crackle’s tech-driven thriller StartUp announced Mira Sorvino will guest star for the new season, joining the cast as NSA agent Rebecca Stroud, who has come to investigate ArakNet, and will do whatever it takes to have ArakNet partner with the government. She joins series’ stars Adam Brody, Ron Perlman, Edi Gathegi, Otmara Marrero, and Addison Timlin.
Hugh Laurie’s Hulu drama Chance has been canceled after two seasons. The psychological thriller is based on Kem Nunn’s novel of the same name and featured Laurie again starring as a doctor, his first series regular role since House.
AT&T Audience Network has announced its full slate of original programming for the first half of the new year, including the new series premiere of Condor on June 6. The conspiracy thriller series is based on the novel Six Days of the Condor by James Grady and the screenplay Three Days of the Condor by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel, and follows a young CIA analyst who stumbles onto a terrible but brilliant plan that threatens the lives of millions. Condor stars Max Irons, William Hurt, Leem Lubany, Angel Bonanni, Kristen Hager, with Mira Sorvino, and Bob Balaban, and special guest star Brendan Fraser.
ABC set the premiere dates of its midseason shows, including Quantico, which has its third season bow on Thursday, April 26; the premiere of For the People (March 13), the network's new legal drama about a female prosecutor who was highly attracted to the suspect in high school and must now choose to either prove him guilty or compromise her moral standards; and the premiere for another new drama, Deception (March 11), about Las Vegas illusionist Cameron Black who becomes the world's first "consulting illusionist" as he works with the FBI to solve odd crimes.
LIkewise, CBS also announced its midseason schedule, including season 6 of the modern Sherlock Holmes series Elementary on April 30, and the third season of medical thriller Code Black that launches on May 2.
Fox Networks Group has unveiled the first-look at its global espionage thriller Deep State, starring Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s Mark Strong. The show, which is the company’s first regional scripted commission for Europe and Africa, sees Strong play an ex-spy whose past comes back to haunt him.
VIDEO/RADIO/PODCASTS
Host Simon Mayo welcomed author Andy Weir to the first Radio 2 Book Club of 2018 to discuss Artemis, a high-concept thriller about a heist set on the moon.
TCM Noir Alley host Eddie Muller talked about femme fatales, hardboiled fiction, and Noir City Festival on a KPBS podcast.
Authors H. Terrell Griffin (Vindication) and Tom Straw (the scribe behind the Castle tie-in novels) joined Suspense Radio for a discussion of their latest works.
THEATER
The Murray Theatre in Clearwater, Florida, is staging the world premiere of Mike Hammer: Encore for Murder, a tribute to crime novelist Mickey Spillane written by Max Allan Collins. The play stars Gary Sandy (WKRP in Cincinnati) as Mike Hammer, the toughest PI of all, who draws a seemingly routine assignment—playing bodyguard to diva Rita Vance on the eve of her big Broadway comeback. Rita is an old flame of Hammer’s and when their romance is rekindled, the detective finds the actress facing death threats and himself the target of one hit man after another. When the actress disappears, the show must go on, which with Mike Hammer means swift, violent retaliation. The production runs through February 3.
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