Welcome to Monday and a new list of the latest crime drama news:
AWARDS
The Screen Actors Guild Awards were handed out last night in Los Angeles with a few nods to crime dramas. Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (the SAG equivalent of Best Film) went to Black Panther. On the TV side, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series went to Darren Criss for his role in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story; Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series, Patricia Arquette for Escape at Dannemora; Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, Jason Bateman for his role in Ozark; and Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, Sandra Oh for her role in Killing Eve.
THE BIG SCREEN
Rialto Pictures has acquired rights to Yardie, which will be the directorial debut of Idris Elba, who also serves as executive producer. Written by Brock Norman Brock and Martin Stellman and based on the Victor Headley novel of the same name, the crime drama involves the intertwined worlds of the Jamaican narcotics syndicates and the music industry during the 1970s and 1980s.
Another Fast and Furious spinoff is in the works, this time involving a female-driven cast. A trio of female writers has also been brought on board: Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy), Lindsey Beer (the adaptation of Patrick Rothfuss' The Kingkiller Chronicles), and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider). No details beyond the screenwriters were revealed including exactly who will star in the film, although it's likely the current women of the franchise will be involved including Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.
The son of James Gandolfini will take on the late actor’s iconic role by playing Tony Soprano in the film prequel to acclaimed series The Sopranos. Michael Gandolfini, 19, will appear as a younger version of the New Jersey mob boss in the film, The Many Saints of Newark, which is set in 1967 and recalls the race riots between Italian- and African-Americans in the city. James Gandolfini, who died of a heart attack in 2013 aged 51, found fame and critical acclaim with his portrait of mobster Tony Soprano, snagging three Emmy awards and a Golden Globe for his performance in the series, which aired from 1999 to 2007
Robert Davi is set to star in 8 Winds, described as a neo-noir thriller along the lines of Robert Altman’s The Long Good Bye and Chinatown. Written and directed by Daniel J. Coplan, the film centers on an over-the-hill filmmaker, a comedy club owner, and an eccentric and reclusive billionaire as they are drawn into an intrigue where a Russian Oligarch fights for control of California’s water.
District 9's Neill Blomkamp is currently working on a brand new RoboCop movie, although unlike the recent less-then-successful reboot, Blomkamp's verion is said to more closely resemble the '80s action classic. The new project is currently titled RoboCop Returns and looks to be using the same strategy as the recent Halloween film as a direct sequel to the original 1987 RoboCop. In order to do that properly, it would require getting Peter Weller to reprise his role although it's been reported Weller is not interested.
The Pokemon-based Detective Pikachu movie is still four months away from being released, but Legendary Pictures has already set a sequel in motion and tapped Oren Uziel to write Detective Pikachu 2. Detective Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds, is a super smart crime solver and can communicate like a human, although only Justice Smith’s character, Tim Goodman, can understand him speaking English. The cast also includes Kathryn Newton as reporter Lucy Stevens, Ken Watanabe as Detective Yoshida, Paul Kitson as Harry Goodman, Karan Soni as Jack, and Omar Chapparro as Sebastian.
The Reed Morano-directed spy film Rhythm Section, starring Blake Lively as an assassin bent on revenge, has had its release date moved from February 22 to November 22, the Friday before Thanksgiving. Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown, Daniel Mays, and Raza Jaffrey also star.
The 17th annual San Francisco Film Noir Festival in underway at the Castro Theater there. Beginning with Trapped and The File on Thelma Jordan (both from 1950), the festival advances through the years all the way up to Underworld USA and Blast of Silence (both from 1961). This year's festival runs through February 3 with a "10-night feast of danger, desire, and despair."
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Kate Winslet is heading to the small screen for Mare of Easttown, an upcoming HBO limited series, with Brad Ingelsby serving as creator, showrunner, and screenwriter. Gavin O’Connor (The Accountant) has been hired to direct all of the episodes. Winslet will play a small-town Pennsylvania detective who investigates a local murder as her life crumbles around her.
CBS has ordered the drama pilot Nancy, penned by Paul Attanasio, which centers on a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles. She uses her "unflinching honesty and hardball tactics to navigate the social, political and national-security issues that converge with enforcing the law."
USA Network has picked up a new crime anthology series from writer-executive producer Andy Greenwald, executive producer Sam Esmail, Universal Cable Prods. and Paramount Television. The first season, titled Briarpatch, is based on the Ross Thomas novel of the same name and follows Allegra Dill (Rosario Dawson), a dogged investigator returning to her border-town Texas home after her sister is murdered.
The Crown producer Left Bank Pictures has scored another major series at Netflix, adapting Sarah Pinborough’s psychological thriller novel, Behind Her Eyes. The story centers on Louise, a single mother and secretary who is stuck in a modern-day rut and becomes obsessed with her boss and his wife—not knowing the terrible secrets they're both hiding and how far will they go to keep them.
Game of Thrones' Jamie Sives and Catastrophe's Mark Bonnar will star in a four-part dark crime caper, the first drama for BBC Scotland’s new digital channel (and will then air on BBC Two). Sives and Bonnar play two Scottish brothers who accidentally run over and kill an old man on a darkened street. After making the panicked decision to cover their tracks, the brothers seem to get away with their crime. However, as neighbors and relatives of the dead man begin to suspect his death wasn’t as innocent as it initially seemed, the brothers find their lives rapidly falling apart, as their actions begin to catch up with them.
CBS has given early renewals to crime dramas Magnum P.I. and FBI, which is a top 10 series and CBS’s #1 new show in total viewers. The fast-paced drama stars Missy Peregrym, Zeeko Zaki, Jeremy Sisto, Ebonee Noel and Sela Ward. Set in Hawaii, Magnum P.I. stars Jay Hernandez as former Navy SEAL Thomas Magnum, Perdita Weeks, Zachary Knighton, Stephen Hill, Tim Kang and Amy Hill.
NBC has released the official trailer for its new midseason series, The Enemy Within, ahead of the February 25 premiere. The psychological thriller centers around a brilliant former CIA operative turned traitor (Jennifer Carpenter) serving life in a Supermax prison, and the FBI agent (Morris Chestnut) who enlists her help to track down a fiercely dangerous and elusive criminal she knows all too well.
ITV and Amazon have released the first images of the thriller, The Widow. The eight-episode drama stars Kate Beckinsale as a woman who sees her supposedly-dead husband on TV and begins a search for the truth that leads her to danger in the African Congo.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The Story Blender podcast welcomed Edgar Award-winning novelist Meg Gardiner to chat about her latest thriller, Into The Black Nowhere featuring FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix, which was inspired by real-life serial killer Ted Bundy.
On the latest Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, Fresno actor Cyndle Cee read the mystery short story, "When Pigs Fly," by Lesley A. Diehl.
The new episode of the Debbi Mack's Crime Cafe featured the Philip Marlowe radio episode “Where There's a Will."
James Rollins was the featured guest on the latest Speaking of Mysteries podcast, discussing his book Crucible, which features a return of the Sigma Force and is a cautionary tale of modern witchcraft, i.e., advanced artificial intelligence, religious extremism, and quantum physics.
This week's Spybrary included a round table discussion on the novels of Helen MacInnes.
"Limb Pit and Infectious Diseases" was the topic of Dr. D.P. Lyle's Criminal Mischief: The Art and Science of Crime Fiction.
This week's topics on the Writer's Detective Bureau podcast, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, were "True Detective, Coffee with a Cop, and Testing Blood."
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