Welcome to Monday and a roundup of the latest crime drama news:
MOVIES
Anne Hathaway is in negotiations to star in director Dee Rees’ The Last Thing He Wanted, based on the Joan Didion political thriller. Marco Villalobos penned the screenplay, which centers on hardscrabble journalist Elena McMahon who quits her job at the Washington Post to care for her father. In doing so, she inherits his position as an arms dealer for covert government forces and soon finds herself in the crosshairs of political espionage.
French filmmaker Julien Seri has signed on to direct the father-son serial killer thriller Anderson Falls for Title Media and Lone Suspect. Starry Eyes executive producer Giles Daoust wrote the script, which follows a detective who becomes convinced that his wife’s suicide was staged, and that she was actually murdered. When he discovers that she may have been the victim of father-and-son serial killers, he’ll have to break all the rules to stop them from killing other women.
Now that we know Daniel Craig will reprise James Bond one last time, the next biggest question is who will direct the actor's last hurrah as 007, especially after Skyfall and Spectre director Sam Mendes announced he wouldn't be returning for Bond 25. Insiders say Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle is high on the list to helm the next James Bond installment, with MGM and Eon Productions, the companies behind the James Bond franchises, listing him as one of the frontrunners.
Idris Elba has released the first trailer for his directorial debut Yardie. Set in ’70s Kingston and ’80s Hackney, Yardie centers on the life of a young Jamaican man named D (Aml Ameen), who has never fully recovered from the murder committed during his childhood of his older brother Jerry Dread (Everaldo Creary). The film, which debuted in Sundance and is screening this week in Berlin, is adapted from the cult 1992 novel by Jamaican-born British writer Victor Headley.
A reminder that the Noir on the Boulevard Film Series in San Diego cranked up this weekend. The series, which will last through December, will held at the Digital Gym Cinema and feature a classic noir one Sunday a month and a neo-noir on Mondays every other month.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
In a seven-figure deal, Amazon Studios has acquired the rights to the Alafair Burke novel The Wife, with the author set to write the feature script. Published in January by Harper, the novel center on Angela, a woman who suffered extreme trauma in her teen years and now learns that her celebrity husband may be a sexual predator. Jason Powell is a handsome NYU prof whose book on socially conscious investing called Equalonomics is a raging bestseller. He runs a successful consulting firm and hosts a top-rated podcast that has enabled Angela and her husband to live an idyllic life with their son in Greenwich Village. Then, his intern files a complaint at the NYPD Special Victims Unit claiming he made inappropriate sexual suggestions at the office. A second alleged victim surfaces and soon there is a murder and Angela has to confront past personal trauma she thought was far in the rear view mirror.
Anthony Hemingway is set to direct and executive produce CBS’ drama pilot Murder, from producer Dan Lin. Written by Amanda Green based on the BBC miniseries, this new take on 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.
Jay Hernandez (Scandal) has been tapped to play Thomas Magnum, the lead in CBS’ drama reboot pilot Magnum P.I. CBS had been looking to add a twist to the classic character played by Tom Selleck in the original series, which had been conceived as diverse in the reboot, with the network setting out to find a non-white actor for the role. The reboot follows Thomas Magnum (Hernandez), a decorated ex-Navy SEAL who, upon returning home from Afghanistan, repurposes his military skills to become a private investigator. With help from fellow vets Theodore “TC” Calvin and Orville “Rick” Wright, as well as that of disavowed former MI:6 agent Juliet Higgins, Magnum takes on the cases no one else will, helping those who have no one else to turn to.
Julia Kelly will be a series regular opposite Kylie Bunbury in ABC’s Get Christie Love reboot drama pilot, inspired by the cult 1974 blaxploitation-themed TV movie and subsequent series. The new Get Christie Love is an action-packed, music-driven drama that centers on Christie Love (Bunbury), an African American female CIA agent who leads an elite ops unit. She transforms into whomever she needs to be to get the job done, especially when it’s down to the wire and the stakes are life and death. Kelly will play Val, the bookish and nerdy tech op for Christie’s (Bunbury) counter-intelligence field unit.
Sense8 alum Brian J. Smith has been cast as the lead in CBS’ drama pilot L.A. Confidential, based on the classic noir novel by James Ellroy. Directed by Michael Dinner, the TV series follows three homicide detectives, a female reporter and a Hollywood actress whose paths intersect as the detectives pursue a serial killer among the gritty and glamorous 1950s Los Angeles. Smith is set to play Detective Ed Exley, the lead role played by Guy Pearce in 1997 that earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Cold, but not without a conscience, brilliant, fiercely ambitious, Ed Exley is an L.A. cop when the pilot story begins. Determined to make his mark and become a hero in his father’s eyes, Ed will do anything to prove himself. Smith joins Justified's Walton Goggins, who was recently cast as Detective Jack Vincennes.
Alyssa Diaz (Ray Donovan) has booked a series regular role in ABC’s straight-to-series light crime drama The Rookie, starring and executive produced by Castle alum Fillion. Written by former Castle executive producer/co-showrunner Alexi Hawley, The Rookie stars Fillion as John Nolan, the oldest rookie in the LAPD. At an age where most are at the peak of their career, Nolan cast aside his comfortable, small town life and moved to L.A. to pursue his dream of being a cop. Diaz will play Angela, an LAPD Training Officer on the cusp of making detective-trainee. That all gets threatened when she gets assigned to Jackson West. Not only does she have to play the usual politics within her own station house, she now has her hands full with an entitled rookie whose father has a say in her career at the LAPD.
In her American television debut, young Australian actress Harriet Dyer has landed the female lead in In Between Lives, NBC’s drama pilot from writer Moira Kirland, Heyday Television — the joint venture of Harry Potter and Paddington producer David Heyman and NBCUniversal International Studios — and Universal TV. Written by Kirland, In Between Lives centers on Cassie (Dyer), 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.
Brandon Flynna nd Michael Graziadei are set to recur in the third season of Nic Pizzolatto’s HBO crime anthology series True Detective, starring Mahershala Ali, Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, Scoot McNairy, Mamie Gummer and Ray Fisher. The next installment tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods.
Dawson’s Creek alum Katie Holmes will star in and executive-produce a Fox drama pilot about a controversial FBI agent. The as-yet-untitled potential series centers on Special Agent Hazel Otis, who is in the middle of a terrorism investigation when her affair with a high-level general becomes public knowledge. As the world sees her as "the mistress," she fights to rebuild her personal and professional lives.
Hamilton's Phillipa Soo has signed as a series regular in CBS’ drama pilot The Code. Written by Limitless creator Craig Sweeny, the project features the military’s brightest minds as they take on our country’s toughest challenges inside the courtroom and out where each attorney is trained as a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, an investigator, and a Marine. Soo will play 2nd Lieutenant Harper, a hyper-organized 2nd lieutenant capable of sub-dividing any problem into color-coded action points.
David Zayas (Dexter) has been tapped for a series regular in ABC’s drama pilot Staties. The show centers on Eliza Cortez, a hard-charging NYPD detective who’s banished to the boonies after a high-profile mistake and is paired with a new partner, Oregon State Trooper Sam King, whose investigative techniques don’t exactly follow protocol. Zayas will play Sgt. Machado, the head of Eliza’s new Oregon State Police unit.
Bosch's Titus Welliver will play meth dealer Ronald Booth in the 18th episode of Chicago P.D.'s fifth season. His character is described as charming and intelligent but also comes with a mean side. An unpredictable man, he can go from a cool charm to impassioned rage in an instant.
Production has begun on Convicting a Murderer, described as a follow-up to Netflix’s Emmy-nominated docuseries Making a Murderer, from documentary filmmaker Shawn Rech (A Murder In The Park). Rech will direct the eight-episode series which investigates the controversial case built by the State of Wisconsin against Steven Avery for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach, in which police were accused of tampering with crime scenes and planting evidence to manipulate the investigation and implicate Avery of the murder. Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey are currently serving life sentences.
Netflix has released the official trailer for their upcoming limited series Collateral, starring Carey Mulligan. Spanning the course of four days in London, the series explores the repercussions surrounding the fatal shooting of a pizza delivery man. Mulligan plays British detective Kip Glaspie, who refuses to accept that this is a random act of violence, and is determined to discover the darker truth
Telexist, the VR production studio behind the narrative film Dinner Party, and its parent company Good Deed Entertainment are teaming on Memory Palace, a 10-episode VR noir thriller series that will be designed to be part cinematic VR and part interactive. The series will center on Owen Knowles, a gifted young lawyer with the knack for seeing peoples’ lies. Disbarred after the mysterious death of his fiancée, he turns to legal depositions as a means to find the truth and seek revenge, and as a human polygraph, he is reminded daily that there is no truth…everyone lies, and everyone has a secret.
The first trailer For BBC America drama Killing Eve was released. The show is based on the novellas by Luke Jennings and stars Jodie Comer as a mercurial, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her, and Sandra Oh as a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade MI5 security officer whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy.
PODCASTS/VIDEOS/RADIO
WHUR welcomed mystery writer Walter Mosley to chat about his new novel, racial and social justice, and the state of black entertainment.
Mick Herron talked with the Spybrary Spy Podcast about London Rules, his Slough House spy series, and Jackson Lamb.
THEATER
A production of William Goldman's stage adaptation of the psychological horror thriller Misery, based on Stephen King's 1988 novel, runs through March 11 at the Hanna Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio. The story centers on successful romance novelist Paul Sheldon who awakes in a secluded home after a car crash and has to outwit the sociopathic bibliophile that seems bound and determined to keep him permanently bedridden.
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