Monday greetings to all with the latest roundup of crime drama news from stage to screen:
AWARDS
The Golden Globes were handed out last night in Beverly Hills. Although there weren't any crime drama winners on the film side, television nods went to The Americans for Best TV Drama Series, while The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story won for Best Limited Series. Patricia Arquette also won Best Actress (Limited Series) honors for her role in Escape at Dannemora and Darren Criss won Best Actor (Limited Series) for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. In the regular drama series category, Sandra Oh won Best Actress (Killing Eve) and Richard Madden Best Actor (Bodyguard).
The Producers Guild of America announced its 2019 award nominees, including several small-screen crime dramas. The Americans, Ozark, and Better Call Saul will compete in the Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama category, while The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Escape at Dannemora, and Sharp Objects will square off in the Outstanding Producer of Limited Series Television division.
THE BIG SCREEN
Writing for Deadline, Peter Bart noted that gangster movies will return in a big way In 2019, awakening the genre "from its Hollywood dirt nap." At the top of the list are the two most anticipated 2019 releases, from Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) and Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
The official U.S. trailer was released for the Mads Mikkelsen action-adventure thriller Arctic, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Mikkelsen plays a man stranded in the Arctic after an airplane crash who must decide whether to remain in the relative safety of his makeshift camp or embark on a perilous trek through the unknown in hopes of making it out alive.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Mark R. Harris’ Los Angeles-based production shingle, The Harris Company, has optioned the crime series Darby Holland from veteran tattoo artist and crime novelist Jeff Johnson for six-figures in a bidding war that took place over the holiday. The project is set in the gritty urban wilds of Old Town Portland Oregon and follows fixer Darby Holland, who runs a venerable tattoo parlor and "leads his talented crew of misfits into battle against hellish art dealers, criminal real estate developers and the creeping doom of gentrification.”
Hulu is in early development stages on a series based on "Simultaneous," a short story by Arrival and Bird Box screenwriter Eric Heisserer. The streaming company struck a six-figure penalty deal in order to pick up the project, which is described as a cerebral detective thriller involving regenerative past lives.
BBC America has slotted an April 7 premiere date for the second season of its critically praised thriller series Killing Eve. In Season 2, Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer reprise their roles as Eve (Oh), an MI6 operative, and psychopath assassin Villanelle (Comer) in this story of two women bound by a mutual obsession and one brutal act.
Netflix released a trailer for season 2 of its series The Punisher, the high-caliber vigilante saga based on the popular Marvel Comics crime-fighting commando, which will return on January 18. The new season finds the Punisher, a.k.a. former marine-turned-vigilante Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), as a nomad living on borrowed time.
Netflix debuted a trailer for the adrenaline-fueled action thriller, Close, directed by Vicky Jewson (Born of War; Lady Godiva). Close stars Naomi Rapace as bodyguard and counter-terrorism expert Sam, who takes a job protecting Zoe, a rich young heiress. Neither party is keen on the arrangement until a violent kidnap forces them to go on the run.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham looked ahead to the 2019 mysteries and thrillers that they are most excited about.
The Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, focused on "Line of Duty Death Notifications, Escaping Your Identity, and Bank Robberies."
The Edmonton Journal spoke with Kristy Ramsey, the owner of Blue Lamp Books, a mystery novel and crime bookstore in Edmonton, about her love and passion for mystery and crime stories.
THEATER
The Long Beach Playhouse will stage a production of Agatha Christie's Spider's Web from January 12 - February 9. Christie wrote the play at the request of English actress Margaret Lockwood (who wanted to play a character that was neither sinister nor wicked), and came up with a work that parodied the mystery genre including her own works. It opened in London in 1954 and was her second longest-running play, next to Mousetrap.
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