It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:
AWARDS
Nominations were announced for the 71st Emmy Awards, with several crime dramas leading the lists. In the Best Drama Series category, nods included Better Call Saul (AMC); Bodyguard (Netflix); Killing Eve (AMC/BBC America); and Ozark (Netflix). The Best Limited Series crime dramas include Escape at Dannemora (Showtime); Sharp Objects (HBO); and When They See Us (Netflix). Among the Best Actor in a Drama Series were Jason Bateman (Ozark) and Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul), while Best Actress nods include Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh (for Killing Eve); Viola Davis (How to Get Away With Murder); and Laura Linney (Ozark). For all the nominees, check out the complete listing here, and for a by-the-numbers look, check here. The 2019 Emmy Awards broadcast will air September 22.
THE BIG SCREEN
Oscar winners Matt Damon and Tom McCarthy are joining forces for Stillwater, a feature which Damon will star in and McCarthy will direct. The project centers on Oklahoma native Bill Baker (Damon), oil-rig roughneck who travels to Marseille where his estranged daughter is imprisoned for a murder she claims she did not commit. He makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter and along the way develops a friendship with a local woman and her young daughter and embarks on a personal journey of discovery and a larger sense of belonging in the world.
Australian actress Lucy Fry, who played opposite Will Smith in the Netflix film, Bright, has been added to the cast of Waldo, joining Mel Gibson, Charlie Hunnam, and Morena Baccarin. Tim Kirkby is directing the action-thriller, which follows a disgraced LAPD detective (Hunnam), who’s spent the past three years living off the grid until he's reluctantly pulled back into his old life by a former lover in order to solve the murder of an eccentric celebrity’s wife. Dominic Monaghan, Eiza Gonzalez, Clancy Brown, and Jacob Scipio also co-star in the film, which is based on the Howard Michael Gould's novel, Last Looks.
A new trailer for the upcoming STX Films crime thriller, 21 Bridges, starring Chadwick Boseman as an embattled NYPD detective thrust into a citywide manhunt for a pair of cop killers after uncovering a massive and unexpected conspiracy.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
In a competitive situation, Amazon has landed the rights to develop a script-to-series drama based on the Jack Reacher character from Lee Child’s bestselling book series (under the auspices of Scorpion creator Nick Santora). Tom Cruise starred in a pair of big-screen films based on the character, although last fall, Child said that he was looking to reboot "Jack Reacher" as a TV series with a new lead to replace Cruise, who he argued, "didn’t have that physicality" of the character. In his books, Reacher is frequently described as being 6 feet 5 inches tall (Cruise is 5 feet 7 inches).
Don Johnson is heading back to San Francisco for a revival of Nash Bridges via USA Network (the original series ran for on CBS from 1996-2001). The revival, currently just a two-hour special, is in early development, and it's possible that it could lead to a new ongoing series. Johnson will return as Bridges, set in the present day, while he is still running San Francisco’s Special Investigation Unit, albeit as he deals with a changed city, a new boss, and police work that focuses on modern data-crunching and predictive policing.
Quibi continues its content spree with a new series from The Killing creator Veena Sud, titled The Stranger, a shortform thriller from Fox 21 Television Studios. The logline: An unassuming young rideshare driver is thrown into her worst nightmare when a mysterious Hollywood Hills passenger enters her car. Her terrifying, heart-stopping ride with the stranger unfolds over 12 hours as she navigates the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in a chilling game of cat and mouse.
The late Stan Lee’s Pow! Entertainment is developing a TV series about a Native American homicide detective based on characters created by Lee. Restless centers on homicide detective Adam Chaco who inherits the mystical powers of his American Indian ancestors after his estranged father dies, particularly those of his grandfather Mohe (Oscar winner Wes Studi), a powerful, revered shaman. Adam is forced to come to terms with a heritage he has long sought to escape, while facing down supernatural criminals he could never have imagined. The detective is aided by Interpol Special Investigator Bridghid Everly, a high-spirited descendent of a Druid Princess who also possesses extraordinary physical and psychic abilities
British broadcaster ITV and a slew of European networks have signed up to the remake of classic British detective drama, Van Der Valk. The three-part series follows a street smart and unapologetic Dutch detective (Marc Warren) as he navigates the lively and enigmatic city of Amsterdam solving mysterious crimes using astute human observation and inspired detection. The project is loosely based on the novels by Nicolas Freeling.
Viacom’s Channel 5 has picked up the four-part thriller, The Deceived. Set in Cambridge in the UK and Donegal, the northernmost county in Ireland, the contemporary psychological thriller follows a young English student called Ophelia, who falls in love with her married lecturer, Michael. However, when their affair results in a shocking and tragic death, Ophelia finds herself trapped in a world where she can no longer trust her own mind.
Luther creator Neil Cross is adapting his own novel of murder and the supernatural (Burial) into a four-part series for British broadcaster ITV. Retitled Because the Night, the show centers on Nathan, a well-meaning but aimless man who harbors a dark secret and is shaken when a figure from his past shows up on his doorstep.
FX has revealed the Season 4 cast for Emmy-winning limited series Fargo, toplined by Chris Rock. Joining Rock in the next installment are Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire), Jason Schwartzman (Mozart in the Jungle), Ben Whishaw (James Bond: Skyfall), and also Jessie Buckley, Salvatore Esposito, Andrew Bird, Jeremie Harris, Gaetano Bruno, Anji White, Francesco Acquaroli, E’myri Crutchfield, and Amber Midthunder. Created, written, directed and executive produced by Noah Hawley (who also serves as showrunner), the fourth installment is set in 1950 in Kansas City, where two criminal syndicates have struck an uneasy peace - and to cement that peace, the heads of both families have traded their youngest sons.
Chicago P.D. has found its new interim superintendent following the death of Brian Kelton (John C. McGinley) in the show's Season 6 finale: Prison Break alum Paul Adelstein will be joining the series in the recurring role of Interim Superintendent Jason Crawford. The show's former police superintendent, Kelton (McKinley), was apparently shot to death in his home by Voight (Jason Beghe) in the recent finale after he won the mayoral election and avoided being connected to the Intelligence Unit's investigation, culminating in what appeared to be a violent end to his feud with Voight.
Rose Leslie, who plays lawyer Maia Rindell on the CBS All Access legal drama, The Good Fight, won't be returning for Season 4. In Season 3’s finale, which served as Leslie’s swan song, she was sent to Washington, DC to launch a new firm with Michael Sheen’s Roland Blum.
Acorn TV announced its August 2019 slate, featuring the debut of My Life is Murder, starring Xena's Lucy Lawless as a fearless and unapologetic private investigator; the psychological thriller, Seesaw, an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Deborah Moggach, starring David Suchet (Poirot) and Geraldine James; Thorne, series 1 & 2, starring David Morrissey as DI Tom Thorne in the gritty crime drama based on the bestselling series by Mark Billingham; plus, Neil Dudgeon's Top Ten, where Midsomer Murders star Neil Dudgeon introduces 10 standout episodes (one per week) from the macabre detective drama.
Warner Bros has debuted the second and final trailer for the NYC crime thriller, The Kitchen, based on a graphic novel by that same title. This is the feature directorial debut of Oscar nominated screenwriter Andrea Berloff (Straight Outta Compton) and stars Elisabeth Moss, Melissa McCarthy, and Tiffany Haddish as the wives of mobster husbands who continue to run their racket after the men are sent to prison.
Netflix has released a scene from upcoming UK drama, The Stranger, based on the novel from Harlan Coben. Richard Armitage takes the lead in the psychological thriller as Adam Price who is living the perfect life — two great sons, a watertight marriage — until a stranger approaches him at a bar and reveals a shocking secret about Price’s wife, Corinne. As Price delves into Corinne’s deception, he soon realizes that he’s become entangled in a dark conspiracy that could risk the lives of those around him.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The Writers Routine podcast welcomed Stuart MacBride, author of the "Logan McRae" series to talk about his new book, All That's Dead, work ethics, and switching up the process.
It was a Dark and Stormy Book chatted with Robert Dugoni, who most recent thriller is The Eighth Sister.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up, featuring the first chapter of Sifting Through Clues, a Cookbook Nook Mystery by Daryl Wood Gerber, who also serves as narrator.
Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham talked about controversy around the Staunch Prize, James Patterson's book about Jeffrey Epstein, and some 2019 releases that they haven't gotten to yet.
The Spybrary podcast welcomed listener John Nordin to submit a "brush pass review" for The Spy Who Sat and Waited, by R Wright Campbell.
The Writer's Detective Bureau podcast host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took on the themes of "Occult Killings, Private Eyes, and Releasing a Crime Scene."
THEATER
The UK immersive theater experience, The Wolf Of Wall Street, will take place in a Liverpool Street location spanning four floors and 25 rooms decked out to represent the world of infamous 1990s New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort, whose flamboyant life was depicted by Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s movie of the same name. A cast of sixteen will play multiple characters as featured in Belfort’s memoirs, from his Stratton Oakmont players to the FBI, placing audiences into a world of greed, power and excess. Staged by Stratton Oakmont Productions, the event will begin its run September 5th and is already booking tickets.
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