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/MOVIES
The full cast was revealed for Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile just as the sequel to Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express begins filming in Egypt (with a target release of October 9, 2020). The Agatha Christie adaptation once again stars Branagh as Hercule Poirot, along with co-stars Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, and Letitia Wright. Michael Green, who adapted Murder on the Orient Express, is pulling down writing duties for Death on the Nile. Branagh also announced that he is going to shoot the project in 65mm.
Sony Pictures Classics has set a release date for Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor, which is the official entry from Italy for the International Feature Film Oscar. The film opened on May 23 in Italy and will now be released stateside in New York and Los Angeles on January 31, 2020. The Traitor is based on the true story of Tommaso Buscetta (played by Pierfrancesco Favino), the man who brought down the Cosa Nostra mafia in Sicily. During its Cannes premiere, The Traitor screened in competition and received a 13-minute standing ovation.
Christopher McQuarrie has apparently begun work on the next two Mission: Impossible movies. While the exact plan for the two films hasn't been revealed, they'll be released a year apart from each other which means the two films are set to be shot back-to-back.
A trailer was released for Guy Ritchie’s latest film, The Gentlemen, with Matthew McConaughey playing the sole American expat among an impressive cast of British tough guys. McConaughey’s character has built a profitable marijuana empire in London and is rumored to be cashing out of his business forever, leading every gangster in town to plot schemes, bribes and blackmail in an attempt to win his empire. The only problem is, he is not for sale. Also in the cast are Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
CBS has given a put pilot order to Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren’s one-hour drama, The International. Lundgren is set to star as Anders Soto, described as part negotiator, part international spy. He is a one-man covert black-ops team working for the U.N., called in to find asymmetrical solutions to the world’s most delicate and complex problems. Stallone is set to direct, while Ken Sanzel will write and executive produce.
The Bourne franchise is coming back soon to USA with a spinoff series called Treadstone. The show, which is primarily set within the present day, follows a number of sleeper agents after the supposed shuttering of Treadstone years prior. Treadstone will expand the lore of the franchise as well as playing into a new Bourne film, which is in the works.
CBS has put in development Drift, a drama from Black List writer Christopher Salmanpour. After the disappearance of her wife on a scuba trip, a renowned and fearless oceanographer forms an unorthodox but highly skilled team of specialists. They take on the unique challenge of solving crimes committed at sea where evidence and clues are as fickle as the tides, devoting themselves to bringing closure to victims who rarely get it.
AMC has given a series order to the courtroom drama, 61st Street, being described as a "two-season television event series," with eight episodes each. The drama centers on Moses Johnson, a "promising, black high school athlete who is swept up into the infamously corrupt Chicago criminal justice system" when he is taken by the police as a supposed gang member and accused of the death of an officer during a drug bust gone wrong. Peter Moffat, who wrote the BBC drama which inspired HBO’s The Night Of, is showrunner and executive producer.
TBS has given a straight-to-series order to Obliterated, a 10-episode one-hour action drama. Obliterated is a serialized action dramedy focused on an elite special forces team tracking a deadly terrorist network, hell-bent on blowing up Las Vegas. After their raging end-of-mission party filled with alcohol and drug-fueled debauchery, the team discovers the bomb they deactivated was a decoy. With the clock ticking, the intoxicated team has to fight through their impairments, overcome their personal issues, deactivate the bomb, and save the world.
Sonoya Mizuno (Maniac) is set as a series regular opposite Kaley Cuoco in HBO Max’s thriller drama series, The Flight Attendant, based on the novel by New York Times bestselling author Chris Bohjalian. The project centers on Cassie (Cuoco), a flight attendant, who wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man – and no idea what happened. Mizuno will play Miranda, a savvy and potentially dangerous businesswoman who Cassie meets in Bangkok.
S.W.A.T. actress, Stephanie Sigman, confirmed her departure from the CBS drama on social media this week after fans noticed her absence from the show’s Season 3 premiere. One of the show’s original cast members alongside series star Shemar Moore, Sigman portrayed Jessica Cortez, commanding officer of the LAPD Metropolitan Division for two seasons. In the Season 2 finale, the character accepted an offer from the FBI to leave the LAPD and go undercover.
Once Upon a Time alumna Mekia Cox is returning to ABC with a series regular role on the upcoming second season of the cop drama, The Rookie, starring Nathan Fillion. Cox will play Detective Nyla Harper, who tries to reclaim a more normal law enforcement life after a four-year stint working undercover. Her character first appears in the upcoming fourth episode "Warriors and Guardians."
BBC One is set to premiere its Sarah Phelps-written crime drama, Dublin Murders, on October 14. The eight-episode series has been picked up by Starz in the U.S. and is adapted from Tana French’s first two novels in the Dublin Murder Squad crime series, In The Woods and The Likeness. Filmed in Belfast and Dublin, Dublin Murders stars Killian Scott (C.B. Strike) and Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful) as detectives dispatched to investigate a child’s murder, who find a community caught between old and new Ireland.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Laura Lippman joins WYNC's Greene Space to discuss her new book, Lady in the Lake, for the first installment of the book club, "Get Lit with All Of It."
Two Crime Writers and Microphone hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste presented a live recording from the Bloody Scotland crime festival as they were joined by an array of talent including Richard Osman, Mark Billingham, Caroline Kepnes, Chris Brookmyre, Helen FitzGerald, and Abir Mukherjee.
Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack interviewed retired police officer and detective with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Andy Caldwell. Caldwell's book, Room 1203, is the true crime story of the O.J. case, on which Caldwell served as an investigator.
Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro welcomed Dietrich Kalteis to talk about his new release, Call Down the Thunder.
The latest Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, took a look at the topics of "Firearms Qualifications, Exceptional Means, and OODA Loops."
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Anna Lee Huber, the Daphne award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries, the Verity Kent Mysteries, the Gothic Myths series, and the forthcoming anthology, The Deadly Hours.
The latest podcast from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine features a reading of Macavity Award-nominated short story, "Race to Judgment," by author Craig Faustus Buck.
THEATER
The King's Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland, is staging English dramatist J. B. Priestley's play, An Inspector Calls, through October 12. When Inspector Goole arrives unexpectedly at the prosperous Birling family home, their peaceful dinner party is shattered by his investigations into the death of a young woman. His startling revelations shake the very foundations of their lives.
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