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
Aaron Eckhart (London Has Fallen) is set to star in the conspiracy thriller, Wander. The story centers on Arthur Bretnik (Eckhart), a mentally unstable private investigator, who, after being hired to probe a suspicious death in the small town of Wander, becomes convinced the case is linked to the same conspiracy cover-up that caused the death of his daughter.
A trailer was released for French filmmaker Luc Besson's thriller, Anna, which stars Sasha Luss as Moscow fashion model turned government assassin, Anna Poliatova. She’s assigned to a top secret case in Paris per her boss (played by Oscar winner Helen Mirren in an M-like role).
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Following the success of its Netflix original show, Young Wallander, Yellow Bird U.K. is set to produce its second drama, The Secret Woman, a series adaptation of the Danish book of the same name written by Anna Ekberg. The project is described a “luscious female-led murder mystery” that centers on Louise Andersen, a forty-something woman who lives in a secluded village on the Danish island of Bornholm with Joachim, who is 10 years older. Their routine is disrupted by the arrival of Edmund, a man convinced Louise is in fact Helene, his wife who mysteriously disappeared three years prior.
Jack Reacher author Lee Child has teamed up with Dancing Ledge Productions to develop a true crime anthology drama series described as “Black Mirror-meets-Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Lee Child: True Crime will dramatize the stories of real-life men and women from around the world driven to stand up and put their lives on the line, fighting for justice in the face of great danger (in other words, real-life “Jack Reachers”).
Fox has picked up the Dick Wolf-produced unscripted series First Responders Live. The show will look at first responders—paramedics, firefighters, police—as they answer emergency calls across the country, giving viewers a front-row seat.
Taylor Kitsch (True Detective), Michael C. Hall (Dexter), and Logan Marshall-Green are set to lead the cast of Shadowplay, a gritty dramatic thriller series from The Bridge co-creator Måns Mårlind, who has conceived the project as a 16-episode series told in two chapters. The story follows Kitsch's cop, who arrives in post-WWII Berlin to help set up a police force. Marshall-Green is a Nazi hunter in the aftermath of the War, while pieces of the coming Cold War are also being put in place.
The British broadcaster Alibi is producing its second original scripted drama, a six-part psychological thriller from Gaby Hull titled We Hunt Together. The cat-and-mouse story follows two detectives as they try to outsmart a pair of killers, one a former child soldier desperate to suppress his predisposition for violence and the other a magnetic and disarmingly charming free spirit. Described as both a psychological thriller and romance, the show explores the dangerous power of desire and questions who is really to blame when the damaged do damage.
Former Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany is set for a lead role opposite Matthew Rhys in the HBO limited series reboot of Perry Mason. Written and executive produced by Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald, who also will showrun, the re-imagined Perry Mason legal drama is set in 1932 Los Angeles.
Vincent D’Onofrio has been cast in CBS All Access’s upcoming true-crime drama, Interrogation, joining a cast that includes David Strathairn, Peter Sarsgaard, Kyle Gallner, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. D’Onofrio plays an Internal Affairs officer who ends up becoming Kyle Gallner’s character’s biggest ally, an experience that calls his faith in the criminal justice system into question. The show is based on a true story that spanned more than 30 years, in which a young man was charged and convicted of brutally murdering his mother. Each episode is structured around an interrogation taken directly from the real police case files.
CBS has renewed crime drama NCIS for a 17th season. Mark Harmon will return as Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and of this writing, it appears the other stars will return, including Sean Murray (Special Agent Timothy McGee), Emily Wickersham (Special Agent Eleanor “Ellie” Bishop), Wilmer Valderrama (Special Agent Nickolas “Nick” Torres), Maria Bello (Special Agent Jacqueline “Jack” Sloane), Brian Dietzen (Dr. Jimmy Palmer), Diona Reasonover (Forensic Scientist Kasie Hines), with Rocky Carroll (NCIS Director Leon Vance) and David McCallum (Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard).
CBS also renewed cop drama Blue Bloods for Season 10, with Tom Selleck set to return as Frank Reagan, New York Police Commissioner and patriarch of a multi-generational family of police officers. The elite crop of law enforcement officials includes eldest son Danny (Donnie Wahlberg), a war veteran and a hardened detective who likes to bend the rules to crack his toughest cases, and Erin (Bridget Moynahan), who, as the only woman in the group, developed a thick skin which that makes her an adept assistant district attorney.
HBO has renewed the hitman dramedy, Barry, for a third season. Barry stars Bill Hader in the title role as a depressed, low-rent hitman from the Midwest who finds himself drawn into a community of acting students while on a job in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, YouTube has cancelled several scripted shows, including Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television, where an LAPD task force partners actors with homicide detectives so they can use their acting skills to help solve murders.
The Veronica Mars revival has been given a premiere date on Hulu in July, and the streaming service also released a short teaser trailer for the show that once again stars Kristen Bell as the titular private eye.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
NPR's All Things Considered spoke with Angie Kim about her debut novel, Miracle Creek, a courtroom thriller that tackles heavy themes like immigration, parenting, and autism.
Debbi Mack interviewed thriller author Jamie Freveletti on the Crime Cafe podcast. Freveletti is the author of the Emma Caldridge series and winner of a Barry award and International Thriller Writers Best First Novel award.
Read or Dead host Katie McClean Horner was joined by guest host Vanessa Diaz to chat about book-to-movie adaptations, their mutual love for the movie Clue, and more.
Meet the Thriller Author podcast welcomed Robert Dugoni, bestselling author of The Tracy Crosswhite series, including My Sister’s Grave, which has been optioned for television series development.
The Spybrary podcast featured the first in its series of commentaries on spy novels read by the students of the Fiction and Espionage class at the University of Edinburgh. The first group tackled Free Agent, the debut novel in the Paul Dark series written by Jeremy Duns.
In the latest episode of Frank Zafiro's Wrong Place, Write Crime, Colin Campbell discussed his law enforcement career with the Yorkshire Metro Police, his Jim Grant thrillers, and the differences between the US and the UK, including how US cops carry guns.
THEATER
Heart of Darkness is getting a radical retelling at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, UK, in a production that fuses live performance with cutting-edge digital technology. The innovative production turns Joseph Conrad's classic on its head, retelling the story through the eyes of a female Congolese detective making the perilous journey into a war-torn Europe. The show will run from Wednesday May 8 through Saturday, May 11.
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