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
Jason Statham is reuniting with Guy Ritchie for the fourth time on an untitled action thriller, a remake of the French 2004 movie, Le Convoyeur, starring Jean Dujardin and Albert Dupontel. The project is a revenge-thriller that will follow "H," a cold and mysterious man responsible for moving hundreds of millions of dollars around Los Angeles each week. The film also shifts across timelines and between various character’s perspectives.
A female-fronted John Wick spinoff film titled Ballerina is in the works, with Len Wiseman set to direct the film. Ballerina follows a female assassin and will be developed as an extension to the John Wick universe.
Taken director Pierre Morel is set to helm an action thriller based on the graphic novel, The Blacksmith, by Malik Evans and Richard Sparkman. The project tells the story of a go-to weapons expert who goes on the run after his lab is destroyed and his colleagues are murdered. He has to use his unique set of skills to keep him alive and journey through the heart of his own dark profession.
Ben Foster (Hell Or High Water) and Gillian Jacobs (Community) have joined Chris Pine in the action-thriller, Violence Of Action, which has now begun principal photography in the U.S., Germany, and Romania. Tarik Saleh (The Nile Hilton Incident) is directing from a script by J.P. Davis. The story centers on James Harper (Pine), who is involuntarily discharged from the Green Berets and joins a paramilitary organization in order to support his family. Harper travels to Berlin with his elite team on a black ops mission to investigate a mysterious threat, where he finds himself alone and hunted across Europe after he is betrayed.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
ABC has given a put pilot commitment to Homicide Special, a crime drama from The Resident co-creator/executive producers Amy Holden Jones and Andrew Chapman. Homicide Special is set inside the Homicide Special division of the Philadelphia PD and follows two young and recently promoted female detectives and a beat cop as they take on an entrenched and corrupt system at an inner city precinct.
Fox has given a script commitment to an FBI drama from The Resident supervising producer Jen Klein. The project is an untitled fast-paced, character-driven drama centering on four female FBI agents in the Manhattan field office, a storyline inspired by journalist and author Doug Stanton’s interviews of women in law enforcement.
David Oyelowo has been tapped for the lead role in Showtime's The President Is Missing, based on the book of the same name by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. The project follows a powerless and politically aimless Vice President (Oyelowo) who unexpectedly becomes President halfway into his administration’s first term, despite his every wish to the contrary. He walks right into a secret, world-threatening crisis, both inside and outside the White House.
HBO has picked up a series adaptation of the Maniac Cop film franchise from Nicolas Winding Reffn. Set in Los Angeles, Maniac Cop is told through "a kaleidoscope of characters, from cop to common criminal" when a killer in uniform unleashes mayhem upon the streets. Paranoia leads to social disorder as a city wrestles with the mystery of the exterminator in blue – is he mere mortal, or a supernatural force?
The creative team behind NBC’s 2018-19 drama series, The Village, have reteamed for another drama, which has landed at NBC for development. Titled Bad Blood, the crime drama centers on a murder investigation that leads an upstanding detective deep into the life of a criminal brother he never knew he had. While one brother struggles to go straight, the other increasingly finds himself with a foot in two worlds — cracking cases, harboring secrets, and treading the slippery moral slope of putting blood before blue.
Prodigal Son has been picked up for a full season at Fox, taking Season 1 up to 22 episodes total. The series premiere of Prodigal Son was the highest-rated new series on any network and helped lead Fox to its first victory on opening night of the broadcast season in 10 years. The Walking Dead's Tom Payne stars as Malcolm Bright, a criminal psychologist whose father, Dr. Martin Whitly (Michael Sheen), is a notorious serial killer known as "The Surgeon." Bright's relationship with his father gives him both the baggage and the expertise he needs to solve crimes as a consultant for the NYPD. The network also announced that Here and Now alum Raymond Lee is set for a recurring role in the series.
Last week I noted that the Bourne franchise is coming back very 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. Now, Amazon has picked up the global rights to the drama and will launch the series outside of the States in January 2020 following its debut on the NBCU-backed cable network on October 15. The series stars Jeremy Irvine, Tracy Ifeachor, Omar Metwally, Brian J. Smith, Hyo Joo Han, Gabrielle Scharnitzky, Emilia Schüle, and Michelle Forbes.
A+E networks' spy documentary series, Damien Lewis: Spy Wars, has been picked up in international markets including Canada and China shortly after the Smithsonian Channel snagged it for the U.S. market. The project is Homeland star Lewis's first foray into factual television, and is an eight-part documentary series telling the true stories behind some of the most important international spy operations of the past 40 years.
The Irishman’s Stephen Graham and Black ’47’s Freddie Fox are to star in the new ITV crime drama, White House Farm. Graham plays DCI "Taff" Jones and Fox plays Jeremy Bamber in the factual drama that tells the story of members of the same family who were murdered at an Essex farmhouse. Mark Addy, Gemma Whelan, Mark Stanley, Alexa Davies, Cressida Bonas, Alfie Allen, Amanda Burton, and Nicholas Farrell also star.
Clive Owen is joining Julianne Moore in the thriller, Lisey’s Story, the upcoming Apple+ limited series from Stephen King and J.J. Abrams. Based on King’s best-selling novel from 2006, the eight-episode follows Lisey (Moore) two years following the death of her husband when a series of events causes her to face realities about her husband she had repressed and forgotten.
The Expanse star Cas Anvar has booked a recurring role on the sixth and final season of ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. Anvar plays Robert Hsieh, an in-house lawyer of a popular dating app who works closely with Caplan & Gold on a discrimination suit.
Game Of Thrones alum Michiel Huisman is set as the male lead opposite Kaley Cuoco in HBO Max’s thriller drama series, The Flight Attendant. The Flight Attendant follows 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. Huisman will play Alex, a charming, wealthy businessman, who runs into some serious bad luck in Bangkok and ends up sticking with Cassie longer than expected. It was also announced that The Purge alum Colin Woodell is set for a key role as an out-of-work actor whose boozy charm is very attractive to Cassie.
Avan Jogia, Dane DeHaan, and Maika Monroe are set to star in the upcoming Quibi series, The Stranger. The thriller follows an unassuming young rideshare driver who is thrown into her worst nightmare when a mysterious Hollywood Hills passenger enters her car. Her terrifying 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.
John Boyd has been upped to a series regular on FBI for the CBS drama’s current second season. His first episode as a series regular will air on October 22. Bones-alum Boyd plays Agent Stuart Scola, a silver-tongued, quick-witted former Wall Street type.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Deon Meyer spoke with JustNje about expectations surrounding the M-net series adaptation of his acclaimed crime novel, Trackers.
In the latest Read or Dead podcast episode, regular host Katie McClean Horner was joined by guest host, Liberty Hardy, to talk about Knives Out, creepy mysteries, and more.
Speaking of Mysteries welcomed author Deborah Crombie to chat about the latest in her series with Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Detective Inspector Gemma James, Bitter Feast.
The latest episode of Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast features the mystery short story, "Mr. Borden Does Not Quite Remem…" written by Ana Brazil and read by actor Kelly Ventura; the story has to do with Lizzie Borden and is perfect for Halloween.
Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack welcomed journalist and crime writer Peter Eichstaedt. His nonfiction works include First Kill Your Family, his book on child soldiers in Uganda (the 2009 Colorado Book Award winner), and his latest thriller novel is Enemy of the People, the second installlment in his series featuring journalist Kyle Dawson.
It Was A Dark and Stormy Book Club featured guests Lauren North, author of The Perfect Son, and former Toronto Police Officer tuned crime writer, Desmond Ryan, author of Man at the Door.
Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro chatted with Owen Mullen about his native Scotland and his new book, Deadly Harm.
Beyond The Cover welcomed special guest Casey Barrett to talk about his latest book, The Tower of Songs.
THEATER
The Portland Ballet will present Tales by Poe, October 18-19, at Westbrook Performing Arts Center. Inspired by the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Artistic Director Nell Shipman has transformed Poe’s "Berenice," "Tell Tale Heart" and "Masque of the Red Death" into ballets suitable for the most haunting time of the year.
The Lakewood Playhouse is presenting the return engagement of their popular one-man show, An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe. The play will be performed October 18-19 and features Tim Hoban as Edgar Allan Poe inviting you into his parlor to hear some of his most famous stories of the macabre and imagery-filled poetry.