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
Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn has nabbed the closing night slot at this year’s New York Film Festival. Inspired by Jonathan Lethem’s best-selling novel, the project has a neo-noir narrative set in 1950s New York and follows a private detective (Norton) with Tourette syndrome as he becomes entangled in a conspiracy involving a Robert Moses–like master builder (Alec Baldwin). The cast also includes Bruce Willis, Willem Dafoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Leslie Mann, and Cherry Jones.
Universal Pictures has canceled plans to release the thriller, The Hunt, following the mass shootings last month in El Paso and Dayton. The statement posted on the studio's website added, "We stand by our filmmakers and will continue to distribute films in partnership with bold and visionary creators, like those associated with this satirical social thriller, but we understand that now is not the right time to release the film." The picture follows 12 people who discover they have been kidnapped and brought to The Manor, a hunting ground where billionaires pay top dollar to hunt them for sport.
James Jordan is set to join Angelina Jolie in the wilderness thriller, Those Who Wish Me Dead, based on Michael Koryta’s novel about a 14-year-old boy who witnesses a brutal murder and is hidden in a wilderness skills program. Jordan’s specific role in the Taylor Sheridan-directed film has not been released.
Patrick Schwarzenegger (Midnight Sun), Gilles Geary (The I-Land) and Hayley Law (Riverdale) are among cast members joining Michael Shannon and Alex Pettyfer in the feature crime-drama, Echo Boomers, which has started filming in Utah. Based on a true story, the film follows a group of disillusioned twentysomethings who break into and steal from the homes of the rich. Seth Savoy is making his directorial debut on the movie which he scripted with Kevin Bernhardt and Jason Miller.
David Zayas (Dexter) will play "John the Baptist" in the Michael Polish-directed action pic, Force of Nature, about a gang of thieves who plot a heist during a hurricane, only to have a cop complicate events. Zayas’s character is part of the bank heist crew, described as a ruthless, cold guy who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants, even if means sacrificing people on his team. He joins the previously announced Mel Gibson, Emile Hirsch, and Kate Bosworth in the cast.
The younger set may be happy to learn that Disney is planning on a live action/animation remake of The Great Mouse Detective. The original cartoon mystery film was released in 1986 to widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Based on the children’s book series Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus, the feature closely emulates Sherlock Holmes and centers on a heroic mouse named Basil who lives in Victorian London and is trying to solve a potentially deadly mystery.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Fox Entertainment has acquired the rights to The Spellman Files book series by Lisa Lutz, which revolves about a family of PIs, to develop as a drama series. The Spellman book series launched with Lutz’s debut novel, the 1997 The Spellman Files, and consists of six novels about the Spellmans, a close-knit family of private investigators who are intensely suspicious and spend much time investigating each other. At one point, the novels were in development as a feature at Paramount.
BET Networks is developing Sister Code, a one-hour family legal drama from writer Gregg McBride (A Heavenly Christmas) and Intrepid, the Emmy-winning banner of Blair Underwood (When They See Us, Quantico). Created by McBride, Sister Code focuses on the intense rivalry between two sisters, both high-powered lawyers, who are competing for managing partner of their father’s law firm. Their clash not only challenges their already difficult relationship and familial bonds but also the high-stakes cases they and their fellow female attorneys handle.
NBC has commissioned six additional scripts from new legal drama, Bluff City Law, starring Jimmy Smits. It's a good sign for the series since backup scripts are typically ordered around the premiere or after a few airings. Co-created by Georgaris and Michael Aguilar and written by Georgaris, Bluff City Law is a character-driven drama that follows the lawyers of an elite Memphis firm that specializes in the most controversial landmark civil rights cases. Led by legendary lawyer Elijah Strait (Smits) and his brilliant daughter, Sydney Keller (Caitlin McGee), they take on the toughest David-and-Goliath cases while navigating their complicated relationship.
In one of the biggest surprises this past pilot season, ABC’s NYPD Blue reboot did not go to series but was kept in midseason contention with a possibility for redevelopment. It now appears that particular iteration of NYPD Blue, a sequel to the original Emmy-winning series, is dead. However, it's not the end of NYPD Blue's comeback at the network, which aired the iconic 1990s cop drama series. According to ABC Entertainment president, Karey Burke, "There are conversations about continuing it but possibly in a different iteration." The recent NYPD Blue pilot starred newcomer Fabien Frankel and co-starred original cast members Kim Delaney and Bill Brochtrup. The sequel centers on Theo (Frankel), the son of Dennis Franz’s Detective Andy Sipowicz character from the original series, who tries to earn his detective shield and work in the 15th squad while investigating his father’s murder.
Jamie Dornan, Alec Baldwin, and Christian Slater are set to star in Dr. Death, a limited drama series from Universal Content Productions based on the Wondery podcast. Dr. Death tells the disturbing true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (Dornan), a rising star in the Dallas medical community. Young, charismatic and ostensibly brilliant, he was building a flourishing neurosurgery practice when everything suddenly changed: patients entered his operating room for complex but routine spinal surgeries and left permanently maimed or dead. As victims piled up, two fellow surgeons (Baldwin and Slater) and a young Assistant District Attorney set out to stop him.
Although this may come from the "don't hold your breath" category, talks are apparently still ongoing about a possible new incarnation of the real-time drama, 24, on the Fox network.
Christi Daugherty’s YA thriller series, Night School, set in a British boarding school, has been optioned for TV. The series has been translated into 23 languages and made into a popular web series which has over a million views on YouTube.
Simona Brown (The Night Manager), Tom Bateman (Murder on the Orient Express), Eve Hewson (The Knick), and Robert Aramayo (Game of Thrones) are to star in the Netflix psychological thriller, Behind Her Eyes, an adaptation of Sarah Pinborough’s novel. The project tells the story of Louise, a single mother and secretary who is stuck in a modern-day rut. On a night out, she meets and kisses a successful young man, David, who turns out to be her new boss. To complicate matters, she meets Adele, a new friend in town, who turns out to be married to David. As she becomes obsessed with the couple and entangled in the web of their marriage, they each reach out to her. But only when she gets to know them both does she begin to see the cracks: Is David really the man she thought she knew and is Adele as vulnerable as she appears?
Netflix has set the premiere date for its police interrogation drama, Criminal, due to launch on September 20. The series, which stars For Life’s Nicholas Pinnock, Doctor Who’s David Tennant and Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell, is set across four countries – France, Spain, Germany and the UK - and takes place exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite in those countries. It is a stripped down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question.
ABC has premiered a new trailer for the upcoming action-drama series, Stumptown, starring actress Cobie Smulders as private investigator Dex Parios. Based on the graphic novel series of the same name by Greg Rucka, the story follows sharp-witted army veteran, Dex, and her complicated love life, gambling debts, and a brother to take care of in Portland.
USA Network just released a teaser trailer for Treadstone, the espionage thriller that premieres in October with a tale that is set within the sleek and brutal world of superspy Jason Bourne.
Time Magazine compiled a listing of "The 24 Most Anticipated TV Shows of Fall 2019" with trailers. There are several crime dramas on the list that are worth a look.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Authors on the Air featured guest host DP Lyle in an interview with fellow author, John Gilstrap, who's been contracted to write and co-produce the film adaptation of his book, Six Minutes to Freedom.
Authors on the Air regular host Pam Stack also welcomed prolific noir and fiction crime writer, Richie Narvaez, to the studio to discuss Hipster Death Rattle, a novel that plays out against a backdrop of rapid gentrification, skyrocketing rents, and class tension.
The two latest Speaking of Mysteries podcasts featured authors Hallie Ephron, talking about her new novel, Careful What You Wish For, and Alex Segura, talking about Miami Midnight, his fifth and final—or so he says—Pete Fernandez mystery.
The Writer's Detective Bureau podcast hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson took on the topics of "Physical Agility, Foreign Nationals, and Missing Children."
THEATER
The Duke of York's Theatre, London, is presenting the stage adaptation of Paula Hawkins's book, The Girl on the Train, from August 17-23. The story follows Rachel, who learns that the woman she’s been secretly watching from her commuter train window every day has suddenly disappeared. Rachel soon finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a thrilling mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.
The Theatre Royal Nottingham in the UK will stage Brian Clemens and Dennis Spooner's Anybody for Murder, August 13-17. It centers on Max, who is planning to murder his wife Janet, collect her life insurance, and enjoy life with his girlfriend when Mary and George arrive on their Greek island with news: Mary and Janet are beneficiaries of a huge fortune. Plans and plots hatch, and soon everyone is hellbent on murder. All that stands in their way is the presence of a neighbor who knows a thing or two about murder—crime writer Edgar Chambers.
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