It’s the start of a new week and that means it’s time for a new roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN
Tom Holland is in talks to star in a new film from Avengers directors Anthony and Joe Russo, the heist movie Cherry. Based on the 2018 novel by Nico Walker, the story centers on a former Iraq War Army medic who turned to robbing banks to pay for his increasing medical bills and to cope with his PTSD. While fictionalized, the book parallels the true story of its author, who himself was an army medic convicted for bank robbery and is currently serving out the last two years of his 11-year prison sentence.
Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Avengement, an action thriller starring Doctor Strange’s Scott Adkins and directed by Jesse V. Johnson from a screenplay he co-wrote with Stu Small. The film centers on a lowly criminal named Cain Burgess (Adkins) who evades his guards while on furlough and returns to his old haunts to take revenge on the people who made him a cold-hearted killer. Nick Moran, Thomas Turgoose, Kierston Wareing and Louis Mandylor co-star.
Killing Ground helmer, Damien Power, is attached to direct 20th Century Fox’s No Exit, a thriller based on the novel of the same name by Taylor Adams. The project follows several strangers stranded at a rest stop during a blizzard, where a young woman discovers a kidnapped girl and must determine who the kidnapper is and plot their escape.
Denzel Washington is in talks to star in John Lee Hancock’s cop thriller Little Things, taking on the role of Deke, a burned out Kern County sheriff who teams with LA County Sheriff’s Department detective, Baxter, to reel in a wily serial killer. Deke’s nose for the “little things” (hence the title of the movie) proves eerily accurate, but his willingness to circumvent the rules embroils Baxter in a soul-shattering dilemma, even as Deke wrestles with a dark secret from his past. The role of Baxter has yet to be cast.
Oscar winner Morgan Freeman has signed on for The Hitman’s Bodyguard sequel from Lionsgate and Millennium Films. Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, and Salma Hayek are set to reprise their roles with Patrick Hughes returning to direct from a screenplay by Tom O’Connor. The latest installment, which is slated to begin filming this month, will follow Michael Bryce (Reynolds) who joins Darius (Jackson) and his wife Sonia (Hayek) on a mission along the Amalfi Coast.
John Magaro has been cast in The Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark, reteaming with David Chase after their 2012 movie Not Fade Away. There’s no word on who Magaro is playing, but he joins Alessandro Nivola, Vera Farmiga, Ray Liotta, Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Billy Magnussen and Michael Gandolfini in the cast. The project is set in the era of the Newark riots in the 1960s, when African Americans and Italian Americans in the city were at each other’s throats.
Denis O’Hare, Naomi Battrick and Ruairi O’Connor have joined Danis Tanovic’s The Postcard Killings. The trio will star alongside Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Connie Nielsen and Cush Jumbo in the adaptation of the James Patterson and Liza Marklund bestseller which follows a hardened New York Detective (Dean Morgan), in search of the person responsible for the murder of his only daughter.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Riven Rock Projects is moving into the action-thriller arena with the acquisition of Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series. The books, which consist of 14 installments including the recent Malta Exchange, focus on former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone, who partners with Cassiopeia Vitt to take down the world’s deadliest terrorists, assassins and con men, unraveling along the way some of history’s most legendary and iconic mysteries.
Indie producer Stampede has acquired bestselling author Ragnar Jónasson’s Icelandic thriller The Darkness and will adapt it as a local-language series. The Darkness, which was published last year, is Jónasson’s first in a planned trilogy focusing on Reykjavik detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir, a dedicated investigator forced into early retirement who takes on a final cold case centered on the mysterious death of a young Russian asylum seeker.
NBC has given an early Season 7 renewal to veteran thriller drama The Blacklist. Series star James Spader had renegotiated his deal early on, adding an extra year, but the rest of the show’s original cast members’ contracts were up at the end of the current sixth season. In addition to headliners Spader, Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, and Harry Lennix, The Blacklist cast also features Amir Arison, Mozhan Marnò and Hisham Tawfiq.
Michael Ealy and Mark Webber are set as leads opposite Cobie Smulders in Stumptown, ABC’s drama pilot inspired by the graphic novels published by Oni Press. It follows Dex Parios (Smulders), a strong, assertive, and sharp-witted Army veteran working as a PI in Portland, OR. Ealy will play Miles Hoffman, a detective with the Portland Police Department who is looking for escaped convict Samuel Kane, while Webber’s Grey McConnell is Dex’s best friend and has an unrequited crush on her. It was also announced last week that The Practice alumna Camryn Manheim is set as a lead in the project.
Last week I reported that Game of Thrones alum Finn Jones had signed on to star in Fox’s crime drama pilot Prodigal Son, but the network announced four days later they’d changed their minds and have replaced him with Walking Dead star Tom Payne. The project centers on Malcolm Bright, who has a gift of knowing how killers think and how their minds work because his father Martin Whitly (played by Michael Sheen) is one of the worst — a notorious serial killer called “The Surgeon.” Also starring in the pilot as previously announced are Bellamy Young, Lou Diamond Phillips, Aurora Perrineau, and Frank Harts.
And in other recasting news, Fox’s drama pilot, Deputy, is recasting one of the female leads opposite star Stephen Dorff. Bex Taylor-Klaus has been cast as Deputy Breanna Bishop, replacing Jasmine Kaur, who originally was cast in the role. Deputy centers on Deputy Bill Hollister (Dorff), a career lawman who’s very comfortable kicking down doors yet utterly lost in a staff meeting. But when the L.A. County sheriff drops dead, Bill becomes acting sheriff, in charge of 10,000 sworn deputies policing a modern Wild West. Taylor-Klaus’s Deputy Breanna Bishop is the smartly dressed, sarcastic, “quietly badass” driver in charge of newly appointed Sheriff Hollister’s security detail
Mary Stuart Masterson (Benny and Joon) is set as a lead opposite Nicholas Pinnock and Indira Varma in ABC’s untitled legal/family drama pilot from Hank Steinberg, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Doug Robinson, and Alison Greenspan. Also executive producing is Isaac Wright Jr., who was wrongfully convicted as a drug kingpin but got his conviction overturned while in prison and became a licensed attorney. Masterson will play Anya, the hard-charging Brooklyn District Attorney.
Former Midnight, Texas star Arielle Kebbel has been hired as the female lead opposite Russell Hornsby in NBC’s Lincoln, the drama pilot based on Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme book series that started with the 1997 novel The Bone Collector. Called back into action when the killer re-emerges, Lincoln forms a unique partnership with Amelia Sachs (Kebbel), a young beat cop who helps him hunt the deadly mastermind while also taking on the most high-profile cases in the NYPD. Also joining the cast is Michael Imperioli, who will play Rick Sellitto, an NYPD detective who assists the title character, a quadriplegic forensic criminalist.
Freddie Prinze Jr. is joining the CW’s Nancy Drew project, playing Nancy's father Carson Drew. In the untitled pilot based on the series of mystery novels featuring the teen sleuth, Carson is a dynamic attorney who has become estranged from his daughter (Kennedy McMann) following the death of his beloved wife. His attempts to reconnect with Nancy run aground when her murder investigation reveals unsettling secrets from Carson's past. The cast also includes Leah Lewis (Charmed), Tunji Kasim, Maddison Jaizani and Alex Saxon.
Joseph Lyle Taylor (Sneaky Pete) and David Fierro (The Knick) are set as series regulars opposite Edie Falco and Michael Chernus in the CBS drama pilot Tommy (fka Nancy), from the Bull team of co-creator Paul Attanasio and producer Amblin TV. Falco will play Abigail “Tommy” Thomas, a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles. Fierro’s Buddy is the brilliant, manipulative mayor of Los Angeles, who becomes a rival for power with the city’s first female police chief, while Taylor will portray Dudik, Buddy’s deputy.
Longmire and Saving Grace alum Bailey Chase and David Andrews (Shooter) have joined the Season 4 cast of USA Network’s Queen of the South drama series in key roles. Starring Alice Braga and based on the best-selling book La Reina Del Sur by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Queen of the South tells the powerful story of Teresa Mendoza (Braga), a woman who is forced to run from a Mexican cartel to seek refuge in America.
Scrubs alum Donald Faison is set as a lead opposite Allison Tolman in Emergence, NBC’s mystery drama pilot. Emergence is a character-driven genre thriller that centers on Jo (Tolman), a police chief who takes in a young child, Piper (Alexa Skye Swinton), she finds near the site of a mysterious accident. The investigation draws her into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined.
Michael Mosley (Seven Seconds, Ozark) is set as a series regular in Fox’s artificial intelligence thriller drama pilot neXT. The show is described as “a propulsive, fact-based thriller grounded in the latest A.I. research.” Mosley will play CM, a Southern ex-con hacker with a genius IQ who works at the FBI cybercrime division. He joins previously cast series regulars Fernanda Andrade, Eve Harlowe, Aaron Moten, and Gerardo Celasco.
Joe Tippett (Rise) and Colony alum Alex Neustaedter are set as series regulars opposite Malin Akerman and Mykelti Williamson in NBC’s legal drama pilot Prism, inspired by Rashomon, the 1950 Japanese period psychological thriller directed by Akira Kurosawa. Prism is described as a provocative exploration of a murder trial in which every episode is told through the perspective of a different key person involved.
A trailer was released for Charlie Says, a film which focuses on the females who fell prey to the manipulation of the infamous murderer and cult leader Charles Manson. American Psycho filmmaker Mary Harron directed the film, which stars The Crown’s Matt Smith as Manson.
A keynote lecture by James Naremore will be part of the second annual Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival Wednesday, March 27. The event will be held at the Katharina Otto-Bernstein screening room at the Lenfest Center for the Arts in New York and features the talk “Into the Night: Cornell Woolrich and Film Noir.”
If you’re a fan of international crime dramas, check out this list from the New York Times of “5 New International Series [that] Visit 5 Far-Flung Crime Scenes.”
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The Story Blender welcomed Liv Constantine, the internationally bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish, who follows that success with an addictive novel about the aftermath of a brutal high-society murder in The Last Time I Saw You.
Debbi Mack interviewed mystery author Phillippe Diederich (writing as Danny Lopez), author of the Dexter Vega mysteries, on the Crime Cafe podcast.
Writer Types hosts Eric Beetner and S.W. Lauden welcomed the writing team of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar to talk about their debut novel, Double Exposure; Wendall Thomas, author of the Cyd Redondo series; Jeffrey Fleishman to answer five questions about his novel My Detective; plus authors from the upcoming anthology Murder A Go-Gos.
Hosts Katie McClean and Rincey Abraham talked about the big college admissions scam and provided some creepy book picks for a reader’s book club on the Read or Dead podcast.
The latest two Speaking of Mysteries podcasts featured Jess Montgomery discussing The Widows, the first novel in a new series with Lily Ross, the first woman sheriff in Ohio; and Glen Erik Hamilton, talking about Mercy River, the fourth installment in his series about the former Army Ranger, Van Shaw.
Tell the Damn Story host Chris Ryan chatted with mystery author and ex-journalist, R.G. Belsky.
The latest edition of Michael Connelly’s Murder Book podcast focuses on the defense of Pierre Romain.
THEATER
The Kings Theatre in Edinburgh is staging a production of The Girl on the Train, adapted from Paula Hawkins’s novel about a woman who learns someone she’s been secretly watching has suddenly disappeared, embroiling her in a thrilling mystery. The show opens March 25 with a run through March 30.
GAMES
NEXT Studios has announced its upcoming narrative-centric detective game, Unheard, will be released on PC on March 29, 2019. Unheard combines story-driven audio drama with puzzle elements to create a unique experience where players take on the role of a time-traveling detective who is only able to use one sense—sound.
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