It's Monday, and that means it's time once again for the latest crime drama news roundup:
AWARDS
The annual Academy Awards announced the nominees in the Oscar race for best picture, acting, and technical achievements. Among crime drama offerings, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri received seven nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Supporting Actor (Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell), and Best Original Screenplay. Denzel Washington was nominated for Best Actor for his role in the legal drama Roman J. Israel, Esq.; and Christopher Plummer became the Academy's oldest-ever nominee at age 88 for his supporting role in All the Money in the World, the film based on the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty II.
The 24th annual SAG Awards were handed out at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, including some serious front-runners for the acting Oscars. Fox Searchlight’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri won three Actor trophies, including the marquee film ensemble prize, the equivalent of Best Picture. Also, Frances McDormand won for her lead role in the film, and Sam Rockwell won for supporting actor.
MOVIES
Twentieth Century Fox is planning a live action film based on the Hasbro detective board game Clue, which will reteam actor Ryan Reynolds with Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote the first Deadpool film. No word on whether Reynolds will play one of the iconic suspects such as Professor Plum or Colonel Mustard. Clue was previously adapted to film in the 1985 cult classic starring Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, and Michael McKean.
Assassination Nation, the thriller starring Bill Skarsgard and Bella Thorne, has sold to Neon and and AGBO production company at the Sundance Film Festival. The film also stars Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, Abra, Colman Domingo, Joel McHale and Anika Noni Rose, and was written and directed by Sam Levinson. The story follows four teenage girls in a quiet town who become the focus of worldwide attention when their personal information is leaked by a hacker, turning their town upside down.
Also from Sundance, Magnolia Pictures acquired North American rights to Gustav Möller’s critically acclaimed Danish thriller The Guilty. The film stars Jakob Cedergren as a former police officer and dispatcher who answers an emergency call from a kidnapped woman. When the call is suddenly disconnected, he begins a search for the woman and her kidnapper using a phone as his only tool. But soon he realizes that he is dealing with a crime that is far bigger than he first thought. The film also stars Jessica Dinnage, Johan Olsen, Omar Shargawi and Katinka Evers-Jahnsen.
More Sundance Acquisitions: Neon acquired domestic rights to Reinaldo Marcus Green’s directorial debut Monsters and Men, starring John David Washington, Anthony Ramos, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chanté Adams, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Nicole Beharie, Cara Buono and Rob Morgan. Monsters and Men is a triptych following three stories — a family man captures an unlawful police shooting on video; a police officer with conflicting feelings about what that video shows; and a high school athlete who, in the aftermath of the shooting, is inspired to stand up for what he believes in. Also, Saban Films bought the North American rights to Craig William Macneill’s biopic Lizzie, starring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart, which revolves around real-live ax murderess Lizzie Borden.
RLJE Films has nabbed the rights to Margot Robbie's sexy noir thriller Terminal. The film also stars Simon Pegg, Mike Myers, Max Irons, and Dexter Fletcher, and centers on two hit men agreeing to a borderline suicide mission for a mysterious employer and a big paycheck, only to find a mysterious woman named Annie (Robbie) could be more involved than they originally thought.
Original Robocop writer Ed Neumeier has revealed that he's working on a new movie centered on the cyborg law enforcement officer, but it won't be a sequel to the reboot or even a continuation of the earlier Robocop sequels or the 2014 reboot. Neumeier revealed he wants to return to the original Robocop continuity and pick up after 1987 version. It's unclear if this means Peter Weller will reprise Robocop or if the new project will follow a new protagonist with Weller playing a mentor-like role.
Suicide Squad's Jai Courtney has been set to star with Nat Wolff in Henry-Alex Rubin’s crime thriller Semper Fi. The story sees Courtney as Cal, a by-the-book police officer who makes ends meet as a Marine Corps reservist along with his rowdy and inseparable group of childhood friends. When Cal’s younger, reckless half-brother Oyster (Wolff) accidentally kills a guy in a bar fight and tries to flee, Cal forces him to face the music at first, then plans on breaking Oyster out of prison after an unfair sentence.
Noir on the Boulevard kicked off a year-long noir festival at Digital Gym Cinema in San Diego with The Maltese Falcon and Brick. The series will also bring in guests to introduce films, including Victoria Mature, daughter of actor Victor Mature, who will introduce her father's film I Wake Up Screaming on Feb. 25, and TCM Noir Alley host Eddie Muller, who will host the March 11 screening of This Gun For Hire. There's also a Noir Book of the Month Club with monthly posts by KPBS Cinema Junkie introducing the books that inspired these films.
If you're in the San Fran area, note that Eddie Muller's 16th Noir City Film Festival continues through February 4 at the Castro Theatre. Highlights this year include I Wake Up Screaming, This Gun for Hire, Shadow of a Doubt, Destiny, Conflict, The Blue Dahlia, and The Unsuspected.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
ABC has put in development the legal drama Illusion of Justice based on Jerome F. Buting’s book. Written by ER alum David Zabel, Illusion of Justice is a fictional show reflecting the life of Jerry Buting, one of the lawyers for Steven Avery, who was profiled in the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer. The series is described as equal parts legal procedural and family drama, focusing on a husband and wife who balance raising their children with running a criminal defense firm specializing in underdog clients who face ostensibly insurmountable odds in the judicial system.
Reboots are also in the news: ABC is planning on a new version of Get Christie Love!, 44 years after it originally premiered on the network as the first drama to star an African American actress. The hourlong drama will be an action-packed, music-driven drama that centers on Christie Love (Bunbury), an African American female CIA agent who leads an elite ops unit. Not to be outdone, CBS also ordered pilots for the Magnum P.I. and Cagney & Lacey reboots. The original Tom Selleck Magnum series ran from 1980 to 1988, while Tyne Daly and Sharon Glass’s female-fronted police procedural was on the air from 1982 to 1988. CBS’s third new drama pilot order is Chiefs, a series about "three driven, successful, but very different women who are each Chiefs of Police."
ABC has picked up a pilot for the mystery thriller Salvage, from For the People showrunner Don Todd. Written and executive produced by Todd, Salvage centers on ex-cop Jimmy Hill who just wants to be left alone after moving back home in rural Florida. But when a local murder is linked to the sunken treasure of a lost Spanish galleon, he’s drawn into the investigation by an idealistic deputy and pitted against the powerful town patriarch, outside criminal agents, and his own father.
Rounding out its slate, ABC announced more drama pilots including Whiskey Cavalier, which follows a tough but tender FBI super-agent Will Chase (codename Whiskey Cavalier) who, following an emotional breakup, is assigned to work with badass CIA operative Francesca "Frankie" Trowbridge (codename Fiery Tribune); The Fix, written by Marcia Clark, Elizabeth Craft, and Sarah Fain, which centers on former prosecutor Maya Travis, who has left Los Angeles for a quiet life in rural Oregon after losing the biggest case of her career and being shredded by the media, but eight years after her devastating defeat, the murderer strikes again, forcing Maya to return to Los Angeles to confront him one more time; an untitled Holmes sisters drama from CSI alum Pam Veasey, about five African-American sisters, all officers in the NYPD; Safe Harbor, written by Detroit 1-8-7's Jason Richman, chronicling the colorful, complicated lives of cops on and off the beat; and Staties, which centers on a hard-charging NYPD detective, Eliza Cortez, who is banished to the boonies after a high-profile mistake and is paired with a new partner, Oregon State Trooper Sam King.
CBS also gave a nod to Murder, from producer Dan Lin, which is based on the BBC miniseries. Written by Amanda Green (Lethal Weapon), the investigative drama explores crime through the unique and often-conflicting perspectives of cops and killers, witnesses and victims, friends and family. Shot like a true-crime documentary, the series invites the audience inside the emotional journey of an investigation, allowing them to discern the truth and judge the suspects’ guilt or innocence for themselves.
NBC has given a pilot order to The Enemy Within from Gotham executive producer Ken Woodruff, The project is described as a character-driven investigative thriller set in the world of counterintelligence. It focuses on former CIA agent Erica Wolfe, the most notorious traitor in modern history and most hated woman in America, who is brought out of a federal supermax prison by the FBI to help stop some of the most dangerous acts of espionage threatening the United States today.
The CW handed out its first two pilot orders including Dead Inside, which follows an underachieving beat cop who starts seeing the ghost of her hotshot detective big brother as they work together to help crime victims both living and dead, and figure out the unfinished business keeping his spirit on Earth.
Netflix has given an eight-episode order to Unbelievable, a limited series from Erin Brockovich writer Susannah Grant, CBS TV Studios, studio-based producers Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly (Elementary) as well as Katie Couric. Co-written by Grant, who will serve as showrunner, Michael Chabon, and Ayelet Waldman, Unbelievable is based on The Marshall Project and ProPublica Pulitzer Prize-winning December 2015 article, "An Unbelievable Story of Rape," written by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong, and the "This American Life" radio episode about the same case. It tells the true story of Marie, a teenager who was charged with lying about having been raped, and the two female detectives who followed a twisting path to arrive at the truth.
Neon and AMC Networks’ streaming video service Shudder are partnering for North American rights to Coralie Fargeat’s debut thriller Revenge. The film stars Matilda Lutz (Rings) as Jen, a pretty young woman who goes on vacation at a remote desert villa with her millionaire boyfriend (Kevin Janssens). But their romantic weekend goes off the rails when her lover’s hunting pals show up, triggering a wave of violence. Revenge plunges Jen into an arid, drug-induced hell, but one she resolves to emerge from, leaving a tidal wave of righteous violence in her wake.
Meryl Streep is set to join the cast of Big Little Lies for the show’s second season. The Oscar-winning actor, fresh off her record-breaking 21st Academy Award nomination for her role in The Post, will join the multi-award-winning drama alongside Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern. Streep will play the mother of Alexander Skarsgård’s character, described as a woman arriving in the town of Monterey looking for answers about what happened to her son.
Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water) will be heading to the small screen later this year, as the BBC has confirmed he's joined the cast of an upcoming John le Carré adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl. The series also stars Alexander Skarsgård and Florence Pugh, and sees Pugh play young actress Charlie, who becomes involved with an intriguing stranger while holidaying in Greece in the 1970s. The man (Skarsgård) turns out to be an Israeli intelligence officer – and Charlie is soon embroiled in a scheme to find a Palestinian terrorist named Khalil.
Netflix has released the first full trailer for their upcoming crime drama series Seven Seconds. The series is set in Jersey City where tensions run high between African American citizens and Caucasian cops when a teenage African American boy is critically injured by a cop.
Amazon has set March 9 for the Season 2 premiere of its critically praised drama series Sneaky Pete and unveiled a new trailer. Created by Bryan Cranston and David Shore, Sneaky Pete stars Giovanni Ribisi as con man Marius, who left prison only to find himself hunted by the vicious gangster he once robbed. With nowhere else to turn, he took cover from his past by assuming the identity of his cellmate Pete, “reuniting” with Pete’s estranged family.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomed back Robert Crais to the studio to chat about his best-selling Elvis Cole novels and the latest in that series, The Wanted.
Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack interviewed UK mystery author Curtis Bausse (prounounced Bose), who has lived in England, Wales, and France, about his private eye series featuring Magali Rousseau that's set in Provence.
THEATER
The Chattanooga Theatre Centre is staging an adaptation of Agatha Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, through February 11. The story served as the debut of Christie's iconic detective Hercule Poirot, and is set in Essex, England, during summer 1917. Back from war, Capt. Arthur Hastings is convalescing at Styles Court. When the lady of the house suspiciously dies, the tranquil manor turns treacherous. The cause of her death is deemed murder and the killer could be anyone: her unappealing new husband, her ne'er-do-well son, the blunt female groundskeeper, even the local toxicologist.
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