It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Warner Bros has given John Lee Hancock’s cop thriller, The Little Things, a premiere date of January 29, 2021. The movie, written by Hancock, centers around Deke (Denzel Washington), a burnt-out Kern County, CA deputy sheriff who teams with Baxter (Rami Malek), a crack LASD detective, to nab a serial killer. Deke’s nose for the "little things" proves eerily accurate, but his willingness to circumvent the rules embroils Baxter in a soul-shattering dilemma. Meanwhile, Deke must wrestle with a dark secret from his past.
Knives Out star Don Johnson has been cast alongside John Boyega in the Netflix film, Rebel Ridge, from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier. Also joining the cast are Erin Doherty (The Crown), James Badge Dale (Hold The Dark), Zsane Jhe (Underground Railroad) and Oscar Nominee James Cromwell. The pic is described as "a deeply human yet high-velocity thriller that explores systemic American injustice in the context of bone-breaking action, ever-coiling suspense, and pitch-black humor."
Dove Cameron will co-star opposite RJ Mitte (Breaking Bad) in Issac, a psychological thriller which is currently shooting in Los Angeles. Josh Webber is directing from a script he co-wrote with Christopher Neil. The story follows Issac (Mitte), who meets a friendly waitress Cassi (Cameron) one night at a diner, and the pair set out to commit a revenge murder together in the name of love.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Hawaii Five-0 will end its run after 10 seasons on CBS, which has set a two-hour series finale for Friday, April 3. The series was a remake of Leonard Freeman’s 1970s-era series and starred Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan, along with Ian Anthony Dale, Meaghan Rath, Beulah Koale, Katrina Law, Taylor Wily, Dennis Chun, Kimee Balmilero, and Chi McBride. Recurring cast members James Marsters (Victor Hesse), William Sadler (John McGarrett) and Mark Dacascos (Wo Fat) will also return for the finale.
Nicole Kidman is set to produce for Amazon Studios, My Lovely Wife, based on the novel of the same name by author Samantha Downing. The story, described as a marital, psychological thriller with darkly comedic undertones (in the vein of Dexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith), follows a simple, suburban married couple of 15 years who spice up their marriage by engaging in a string of murders. But when one of the couple’s victims is discovered, the husband realizes that his wife may not be as trustworthy as he imagined.
ITV has ordered a mystery thriller from Sophie Petzal, creator of breakout Irish drama Blood. The British broadcaster has commissioned the four-part series, Hollington Drive, which focuses on the lives of two sisters, Theresa and her older head-teacher sibling, Helen, along with a missing child.
The BBC is adapting Imran Mahmood’s crime novel, You Don’t Know Me with The Crown writer Tom Edge and Mrs Wilson producer Snowed-In Productions. The four-part drama will center on a young man who stands accused of murder. The evidence is overwhelming, but at his trial, this man tells an extraordinary story about the woman he loves who got into terrible trouble and how he risked everything to save her. He swears he’s innocent, but in the end, all that matters is this: do you believe him?
The BBC has also commissioned The Responder, a police series starring Sherlock actor Martin Freeman as a night shift officer in the British city of Liverpool. The Responder is written by Tony Schumacher, a former police officer who is fulfilling a lifelong ambition to write for the screen and has been part of the BBC Writers Room emerging writers initiative. The six-part series features Freeman as cop Chris, who works night shifts with his new rookie partner, Rachel, policing Liverpool’s criminal underbelly.
The BBC and HBO are teaming up for documentary on the unsolved mystery of plane hijacker D.B. Cooper, nearly 50 years after he vanished without a trace in 1971. The film seeks to unravel the mystery surrounding Cooper, who boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines plane in November 1971 and hijacked the flight while it was still on the tarmac. He claimed to have a bomb in his briefcase and demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in exchange for sparing the 36 passengers on board.
NBC renewed Law & Order: SVU for three more seasons. The procedural, which already became the longest-running live-action drama this season, will be on the air through Season 24. NBC also gave three-season renewals to Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago P.D., which have been heavy-hitters for NBC, airing back-to-back on Wednesday nights and pulling in massive viewership for crossover episodes between the shows.
Rebecca Breeds (Pretty Little Liars) has been cast as the lead in CBS’s crime drama pilot, Clarice, based on the famous Thomas Harris character, Clarice Starling. Clarice is set in 1993, a year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, and is a "deep dive into the untold personal story of FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Breeds), as she returns to the field to pursue serial murderers and sexual predators while navigating the high-stakes political world of Washington, D.C."
Bella Heathcote (The Man in the High Castle) is set to star opposite Toni Collette in Pieces of Her, Netflix’s dramatic thriller series based on the 2018 book by bestselling crime author Karin Slaughter. Pieces of Her is set in a sleepy Georgia town where a random act of violence sets off an unexpected chain of events for 30-year-old Andy Oliver (Heathcote) and her mother Laura (Collette). Desperate for answers, Andy embarks on a dangerous journey across America, drawing her toward the dark, hidden heart of her family.
Ryan Phillippe and Katheryn Winnick have been cast in lead roles in ABC's procedural thriller, The Big Sky, based on The Highway, the first book in C.J. Box’s Cassie Dewell series of novels. The story centers on a search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. Phillippe plays Cody Hoyt, a well-meaning ex-cop turned private investigator working in Helena, Montana, at the private eye firm of Hoyt and Dewell, which also employs private eye Cassie Dewell (played by Dedee Pfeiffer) and Hoyt's estranged wife (Winnick). When the team discovers these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another victim is taken.
Hulu has tapped Veep alum Tony Hale to star in its adaptation of The Mysterious Benedict Society, based on the novel by Trenton Lee Stewart. The series follows four gifted orphans who are recruited by an eccentric benefactor to go on a secret mission. Placed undercover at a boarding school known as "The Institute," they must foil a nefarious plot with global ramifications while creating a new sort of family along the way. Hale will pull double-duty on the series, starring as both Mr. Benedict, the "rumpled, affable eccentric genius" and head of the titular society, and his "frustratingly sharp, well put-together (if villainous)" twin brother, Mr. Curtain.
Tyrone Marshall Brown is set as a lead opposite Tate Donovan and Melissa Leo in Blood Relative, a forensic genealogy-themed crime drama pilot on Fox. The project is based on James Renner’s 2018 article "Beyond the Jungle of Bad: The True Story of Two Women from California Who Are Solving All the Mysteries," about Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick and Dr. Margaret Press, who have combined their genealogy expertise to push the boundaries of forensic science and help law enforcement identify Joe and Jane Does and track down serial killers. Melissa Leo stars as Louise "Lou" Kelly, a brilliant but irascible expert in genetic genealogy who partners with her affable brother-cop, John (Tate Donovan). Brown is set to play Detective Brick Doughty, a homicide detective and John Kelly’s partner.
The CW Kung Fu pilot has found its star in Legacies' Olivia Liang. The reimagining (with a female lead) of the 1970s David Carradine-starring TV series follows a young Chinese-American woman, Nicky Chen (Liang) who drops out of college and goes on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice — all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and is now targeting her.
Janina Gavankar has been cast as the female lead in Echo, NBC’s drama pilot from JJ Bailey. Echo is a high-concept, genre procedural revolving around a team of investigators who solve the highest-profile crimes by sending our heroes into the past — in the body of the victim. They assume the victim’s identity and must race against time to prevent the crime before it happens. Gavankar will play Mel Goodwin, a police officer who’s driven and eager to prove herself.
Lyndsy Fonseca (Nikita) and Carra Patterson (The Arrangement) have been cast as female leads opposite Josh Peck in Turner & Hooch, Disney+’s reboot of the classic 1989 buddy-cop comedy. Peck plays U.S. Marshal Scott Turner, a version of the character portrayed by Tom Hanks in the movie. Like the film, the series revolves around Scott Turner, who is now an ambitious, buttoned-up U.S. marshal (vs. a police detective in the movie), and his K9 partner. Fonseca will play Laura, Scott’s sister, while Patterson takes on the role of Jessica, Scott’s human partner, and a sharp contrast to his spit-and-polish ways.
The Gifted alum Coby Bell is set as a series regular opposite Jared Padalecki in Walker, a reimagining of CBS’s long-running 1990s action/crime series, Walker, Texas Ranger. Bell will play Captain Larry James, the only African American man in the Austin headquarters and one of only a few in the entire Ranger division. Molly Hagan (Sully) has also been cast as a series regular playing Abeline Walker, Walker’s (Padalecki's) mother, an unstoppable force of nature.
Lorraine Toussaint (The Village) is set to co-star opposite Queen Latifah in the CBS drama pilot, The Equalizer, a re-imagining of the classic 1980s series. The Equalizer stars Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic figure who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Toussaint will play Frieda "Aunt Fry" Lascombe, Robyn’s aunt and a truth-teller who tends to be a wary optimist.
Jazz Raycole is set as a series regular opposite Kiele Sanchez and Angus Sampson in the CBS drama, The Lincoln Lawyer, based on Michael Connelly’s series of bestselling novels about attorney Mickey Haller who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car. Raycole will play Izzy, Mickey’s client, a young former addict charged with grand larceny for stealing a necklace to support her habit. Izzy’s clean now – a fact that Mickey can relate to – and he not only gets her acquitted, but lets her pay off her bill by working as his driver.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The first episode of Listening to the Dead: Forensics Uncovered has host Lynda La Plante taking a look at "Forensic Botany and Ecology."
In another look at forensics, Raychelle Burks, a forensic chemist and a big fan of murder mysteries, discussed pop culture forensics and which shows do it well, on the Short Wave podcast.
Lynda La Plante was also a guest on the Partners in Crime podcast. Hosts Adam Croft and Adrian Hobart also discussed the death of Clive Cussler (and his knowledge of shipwrecks), Martin Edwards’s Diamond Dagger, 2020’s hottest TV genre, Jo Nesbø avoiding his fans, The Hurricane Tapes, and whether independent authors can make a living,
A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up, featuring the first chapter of The Five Manners of Death by Darden North, read by actor Ariel Linn.
In another dramatic presentation, the BBC Drama of the Week podcast featured "This Thing of Darkness," where forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Alex Bridges, charts the psychological impact of the murder of a young man on his family.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Jason Pinter about Hide Away, the first Rachel Marin novel.
Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, spoke with JJ Hensley about his background in law enforcement and the Secret Service, and about his books.
The Crime Fiction Lounge host Paul Stretton-Stephens chatted with Alan Orloff, author of I Know Where You Sleep.
Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover welcomed spy author Alan Furst to talk his latest book, Under Occupation.
Hilary Davidson was the special guest on Speaking of Mysteries to discuss Don't Look Down, the second book in her series with NYPD Homicide Detectives Sheryn Sterling and Rafael Mendoza.
Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham had a rundown about the discussion around My Dark Vanessa and Excavation and discussed mysteries written by Latinx authors.
Writers Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, tackled the subjects of "Experience is the Greatest Teacher, Prosecuting a Serial Killer, and Federal Supervised Release."
Writer Types guest co-host Alison Gaylin joined regular host Eric Beetner to talk with LC Shaw (The Network), Hilary Davidson (Don't Look Down) and Suzanne Redfearn (In An Instant)
THEATRE
A new opera exploring the murder of Alexander Litvinenko will see its debut in the UK this summer. Litvinenko, a former Russian secret service officer, tragically died in London in 2006 after being poisoned with the radioactive isotope, polonium-210. It is believed the plan to murder Litvinenko was formulated by two assassins sent by the Russian government, and a British public inquiry showed compelling evidence against the suspects.
The Cape Fear Regional Theatre is presenting Murder for Two beginning March 5. Everyone is a suspect in Murder for Two… One actor plays the investigator, the other plays all 13 suspects, and both play the piano!
The Indiana Repertory Theatre will Stage Agatha Christie's classic, Murder on the Orient Express, with opening night on March 6.
The Pittsburgh Public Theater is presenting American Son beginning March 5. The play is set in a Florida police station in the middle of the night with a mother searching for her missing teenage son.
Princess Theatre Torquay in the UK will stage The Woman in Black, March 3-7, a play that combines the power and intensity of live theatre with a cinematic quality inspired by the world of film noir.
Richmond Theatre, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is presenting The Cat and the Canary March 2-7. This is a new adaptation of the murderous mystery, which inspired three classic movies starring the likes of Bob Hope, Honor Blackman, and Olivia Hussey.
Theatre Royal Glasgow, Scotland, will stage Dial M for Murder, made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s world-renowned noir film of 1950.
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