Monday greetings and welcome to the latest crime drama roundup:
THE BIG SCREEN
Media Rights Capital won a bidding war at the Toronto Film Festival for the world rights to Knives Out, a contemporary murder mystery that will star Daniel Craig as a detective assigned to solve the crime, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson directing from his own script. Johnson told Deadline he's been a long-time Agatha Christie nut and over the summer scripted his contemporary version of the locked door mansion murder mystery.
The screen rights for the thriller novel The Nowhere Child by Christian White have been snapped up by Australian production company Carver Films and US-based production company Anonymous Content. The Nowhere Child tells the story of a kidnapped child and according to the publisher, has broken the record for the fastest-selling Australian debut novel ever, with over 25,000 sales in its first eight weeks. The novel also won Australia’s Victorian Premier’s Award, awarded to an unpublished manuscript. Previous winners include Jane Harper’s The Dry and Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project.
UK's Bad Penny Productions has optioned British writer Lawrence Osborne’s well-reviewed Cambodia-set thriller Hunters In The Dark, with Osborne and Ben Cookson (Waiting For Anya) adapting the novel for the screen. The novel takes place in modern day Cambodia and sees an English teacher, Robert Grieve, win a satchel’s worth of money and decide to take a journey deeper into the wilder side of the country. Coming up against a scheming American, a crooked police officer and a darker side of Cambodia, Grieve follows his journey to a dramatic climax.
Animal Kingdom and Playtime are spearheading an English-language remake of the Austrian psychological chiller Goodnight Mommy, with Matt Sobel, director of 2015 Sundance drama Take Me To The River, attached to direct. The story follows Elias and his twin brother Lukas who arrive at their mother’s house to find her face covered in bandages - the result, she explains, of recent cosmetic surgery. Lukas delights in their mother’s uncharacteristically lax house rules, but n Elias’ mind, a dreadful thought takes root: the sinking suspicion that this woman beneath the gauze, who’s making their food and sleeping in the next room, isn’t really their mother.
Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, Chris Evans and Tracy Letts are in talks to star in The Devil All the Time, an adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s 2011 novel. Based on a script adaptation by Antonio Campos (who will also direct) and Paulo Campos, the story follows a man desperate to save his dying wife whose prayers turn to sacrifice, drawing in his vengeful son, a serial killer couple, a faith-testing preacher and a corrupt local sheriff in a story told across two decades.
An indie thriller is in the works about The Cuban Five, a group of Cuban agents sent to south Florida by the Castro government to spy on exile groups in the 1990s. The film will be directed by Clement Virgo from a Barrie Dunn screenplay, which is based on Stephen Kimber’s book What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of The Cuban Five. The agents were arrested by U.S. authorities in 1998, convicted and jailed, only to be released in 2014 as part of a spy exchange negotiated by then president Barack Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro to improve relations between the two countries. In March 2015, Dunn and Kimber met in Havana with the five agents, who agreed to work with the Canadian film producers to make the film about their story.
Patrick Melrose Emmy nominee Edward Berger has been set to direct Rio, the Steven Knight-penned psychological thriller starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jake Gyllenhaal as two old friends who meet again in the titular city. One is a journalist, the other a hugely successful financier. Plot details are under wraps, although there is also a strong female lead character.
Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger has signed on to the Giuseppe Capotondi-directed film The Burnt Orange Heresy, joining Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki. The neo-noir thriller is based on Charles Willeford’s novel, which was adapted for the screen by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Scott B. Smith. Set in present-day Italy, the pic follows an ambitious art dealer who is hired to steal a rare painting from one of most enigmatic painters of all time, but becomes consumed by his own greed and insecurity as the operation spins out of control.
The trailer has arrived for Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman’s action thriller Hunter Killer, based on the novel Firing Point by George Wallace and Don Keith
The first clip has been released for Out of Blue, which is based on the Martin Amis's novel Night Train. Directed by Carol Morley (The Falling), the "neo-noir metaphysical mystery" stars Patricia Clarkson as a homicide detective called to investigate the shooting of leading astrophysicist and black hole expert, but once on the case, she’s affected in ways she struggles to comprehend. The cast also includes Jacki Weaver, James Caan, Toby Jones, Aaron Tveit, Mamie Gummer, Jonathan Majors, and Devyn A. Tyler.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
The BBC is developing a detective drama series based on the classic 1938 mystery novel The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake, the nom de plume of poet Cecil Day-Lewis, father of Daniel Day-Lewis. The adaptation is being written by Gaby Chiappe, who has written on a number of British crime dramas, including ITV's Vera as well as BBC's Shetland. Nathaniel Parker, the actor who played the lead role in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, is an executive producer for the project, which is likely to be five or six episodes. Deadline added that the "series could turn into a long-running franchise for the BBC as Blake/Day Lewis wrote 15 books featuring the detective."
The CW is developing a drama inspired by the classic Nancy Drew mysteries, adapted by by Noga Landau (The Magicians). Launching a Nancy Drew TV series has been a priority for CBS TV Studios, which has the rights to the the classic YA mystery books and has developed two Nancy Drew series over the past three years, Drew at CBS during the 2015-16 development season, which went to pilot starring Sarah Shahi and got close to a series order, and Nancy Drew at NBC this past season. Both incarnations were conceived as sequels to the books, with an adult Nancy Drew at the center, whereas the CW version stays closer to the source material, with Nancy just out of high school.
Doctor Who's Alice Troughton has been set as lead director of Channel 4’s crime thriller Baghdad Central as filming kicks off in Morocco. The drama, written by The Last Kingdom scribe Stephen Butchard and based on the novel by Elliott Colla, is set in 2003 Baghdad after Saddam Hussein has fallen and the city lies at the center of the coalition’s efforts to secure the region. In the midst of this chaos, crime and paranoia, Iraqi ex-policeman Muhsin al-Khafaji (played by Waleed Zuaiter), has lost everything and is battling daily to keep himself and his sick daughter safe. But when he learns that his estranged elder daughter is missing, Khafaji is forced into a desperate search to find her.
The Voice judge Adam Levine's company, 222 Productions, and Universal TV have optioned the rights to the Thorn series of novels by James W. Hall, which will be developed for television. There are 14 books in the series, which began with Under Cover of Daylight in 1987. The series follows Thorn, a fishing guide in the Florida Keys with a dark past. When that past comes back around in the form of new violence that rips his world apart, Thorn has to take drastic steps to protect and avenge his chosen family. A writer and cast for the project will be announced later.
NBC is expanding the Law & Order franchise with a 13-episode order to Law & Order: Hate Crimes, based on New York’s actual Hate Crimes Task Force, the second oldest bias-based task force in the U.S. The unit, which pledges to uphold a zero tolerance policy against discrimination of any kind, works under the NYPD’s real Special Victims Unit and often borrows SVU’s detectives to assist in their investigations. The new Law & Order series will be introduced as a planted spinoff from SVU, with the first incarnation of the new unit appearing in the latter part of the upcoming season of the Mariska Hargitay-starring series.
Phoenix Pictures and Renaissance Literary & Talent are teaming to develop a television anthology based on a series of short stories by prolific mystery writer Cornell Woolrich. The Woolrich library has been a complicated rights issue with more than five owners controlling the nearly 300 properties in the Estate. Woolrich is the most adapted crime author in the film noir era, with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black as examples of his classics. His stories were also prominent on one of the Golden Age of radio’s classic shows, Suspense.
Oxygen Media has inked an overall development deal with Paul Holes, the hero detective who helped bring the Golden State Killer to justice. Holes said, "I’m retired now, and am looking forward to this next chapter of my career where I can help shine a light on cases that deserve national exposure.”
Patricia Arquette will star in Hulu’s true-crime series, The Act, a seasonal anthology, with the first season based on Dean’s 2016 BuzzFeed article “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered.” It follows Gypsy Blanchard, a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother. Her quest for independence opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, one that ultimately leads to murder.
Casting was announced for Acorn's adaptation of the British drama series Queens of Mystery, with Julie Graham, Siobhan Redmond, Sarah Woodward and Olivia Vinall in the leads as the eponymous Queens. Queens of Mystery follows a perennially single female detective (Matilda Stone) and her three aunts (Cat, Beth and Jane), who are well-known crime writers that help her solve whodunit style murders as well as set her up on blind dates.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Author Debbi Mack interviewed thriller author Jame DiBiasio on the Crime Cafe podcast, chatting about his latest novel, Bloody Paradise, a tropical noir set in Thailand.
Writer Types welcomed a trio of authors including Aaron Phillip Clark, Nick Kolakowski and Eva Montealegre.
Robert Olen Butler stopped by Speaking of Mysteries to discuss Paris in the Dark, Butler’s fourth Christopher Marlowe Cobb thriller.
In episode #3 of Criminal Mischief: The Art & Science of Crime Fiction, host D.P. Lyle talked about a medical examiner's three most important determinations: cause, manner, and time of death.
On the Crime Syndicate podcast, Canadian crime author Dietrich Kalteis stopped by to discuss his latest novel, Poughkeepsie Shuffle, with host Michael Pool.
The latest Mystery Rats Maze episode featured the mystery short story, "Doggy DNA", written by mystery author Neil Plakcy and read by actor Thomas Nance.
This is Criminal welcomed three of America’s most experienced trauma surgeons speak to talk about what happens when someone is shot.
THEATER
The full cast was recently announced for the world premiere UK Tour of Rebus: Long Shadows: Dani Heron (Angela), Eleanor House (Heather/Maggie) and Neil McKinven (Mordaunt) join Charles Lawson (John Rebus), John Stahl (Big Ger Cafferty) and Cathy Tyson (Siobhan Clarke). The play is directed by Robin Lefevre and opens at Birmingham Repertory Theatre on September 20 with a run through November 24.
The UK's Blackeyed Theatre is touring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, to venues including Worthing’s Connaught Theatre (Thursday-Saturday, September 20–22). In the play, when Mary Morstan arrives at Baker Street to request help following the mysterious disappearance of her father, Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson are plunged into a murky world of deception and a complex plot involving murder, corruption and stolen jewels.
The Lincoln, Nebraska area is having a mini Agatha Christie play cycle, with three works by Agatha Christie performed this fall beginning with the Southeast Community College theater students, instructors and community members present the radio play series "Murder in the Studio" this past weekend. Then, starting in October, the Lincoln Community Playhouse and Beatrice Community Players will tag-team stages to present Christie's Black Coffee and Murder is Announced.
Greensboro, North Carolina's Triad Stage is also presenting an Agatha Chrsitie classic, And Then There Were None, September 14 - October 7. In the classic tale, a group of characters stranded on an island realize that one of their number has to be the killer, and race to solve the crime before they become the murderer’s next victim.
Dame Agatha is also on stage at the Granite Theatre in Westerly, Rhode Island, with a production of the Miss Marple mystery A Murder is Announced through September 30.
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