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
Derek Kolstad, creator of the John Wick franchise, is teaming up with Swiss producer-distributor, Ascot Elite Entertainment, director Claudio Faeh, and producer Christopher Milburn on the action-thriller, Acolyte. The project centers on a rogue government agency that’s using blackmail to coerce everyday citizens into committing acts of domestic terror. The agency mistakenly kidnaps the wife of a retired operative who responds by recruiting a disbanded group of trained "associates" to exact revenge and rescue his wife. Casting is underway in London, and Ascot Elite is aiming for the film to become the first in a series of related features.
Taylor Kitsch has been set as the new male lead in Wash Me in the River, after Colson "Machine Gun Kelly" Baker dropped out due to scheduling. Kitsch joins Robert De Niro and John Malkovich in the drama that will be directed by Randall Emmett. The action-thriller, which shoots early next month in Georgia and Puerto Rico, is said to be in the vein of No Country for Old Men. Kitsch will play a recovering addict who starts a violent vendetta against the dealers responsible for selling the drugs that resulted in his fiancée’s death.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is set to join the ensemble cast of the Sony action-thriller, Bullet Train, also starring Brad Pitt and the recently added Joey King and Andrew Koji. The film is based on the Japanese novel, Maria Beetle, by best-selling author Kotaro Isaka. Plot details are vague though Taylor-Johnson is expected to play one of the four assassins in the film along with Pitt and King.
Toby Huss has joined the action-thriller, CopShop, in a supporting role. Gerard Butler, Frank Grillo, and Alexis Louder lead the cast in the film, which is being written and directed by Joe Carnahan. The plot centers on a small-town police station that becomes the unlikely battleground between a professional hitman (Butler), a smart rookie female cop (Louder), and a double-crossing con man (Grillo) who, with no place left to run, seeks refuge behind bars.
Sony has given a new release date (November 20) and released a trailer for the crime drama, The Last Vermeer. Based on the book, The Man Who Made Vermeers, by Jonathan Lopez, the story follows Joseph Piller (played by Claes Bang), a Dutch Jew who fought in the Resistance during the Second World War. Following the war, Piller becomes an investigator assigned the task of identifying and redistributing stolen art. He zeroes in on the flamboyant Han van Meegeren (Guy Pearce) who hosted hedonistic soirées and allegedly sold Dutch art treasures to Hermann Goring and other top Nazis. Van Meegeren is arrested for collaboration, punishable by death, but, despite mounting evidence, Piller, with the aid of his assistant (Vicky Krieps), becomes increasingly convinced of Han’s innocence and finds himself in the unlikely position of fighting to save his life.
The first trailer was released for Dreamland, the Margot Robbie-led story of a fugitive bank robber during the Great Depression. Finn Cole (Peaky Blinders) also stars, playing a young man who dreams of escaping his small Texas town. When he encounters Robbie’s character, wounded and on the run, he is torn between claiming her bounty and his growing attraction to her. Vertical Entertainment will release the film in more than 100 theaters beginning November 13 before the film heads to video-on-demand starting November 17.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Dick Wolf’s groundbreaking 1990s cop drama, New York Undercover, is making a return. NBCUniversal’s streaming platform, Peacock, is in negotiations for a new incarnation of the project, which is expected to receive a series commitment. Written by Ayanna Floyd Davis, the new project is described as a re-examination of the original, reflecting the current times, and will pick up twenty years later. The original 1994 program starred Malik Yoba and Michael DeLorenzo as undercover detectives, marking the first police drama on U.S. television to feature two people of color in the lead roles. The reimagining is still in very early stages, and it's not known whether it would feature characters from the original series.
Jake Gyllenhaal will star in and executive produce the HBO crime series, The Son. Based on Jo Nesbø’s novel of the same name, the story follows an electrifying tale of vengeance set amid Oslo’s brutal hierarchy of corruption. Denis Villeneuve will direct, and writer Lenore Zion will serve as showrunner. (Nesbø himself will also serve as one of the executive producers.)
Actor Bertie Carvel (Dr. Foster) will take the lead in a six-episode UK series based on P.D. James’s stories featuring Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. The series will trace Dalgliesh’s crime-fighting career from 1970s England to the present day, with each story featuring him solving an unusual murder. Each case will offer its own unique setting and guest cast. The new series, titled Dalgliesh, will include adaptations of Shroud for a Nightingale, featuring the murder of a student nurse; Dorset-set The Black Tower, an investigation into a strange home for the disabled; and A Taste for Death, in which a homeless pensioner and a Minister of the Crown are found dead in a church. Roy Marsden played Dalgliesh across several series in the 1980s and 1990s.
David Gordon Green is developing a series adaptation of Smokey and the Bandit for the NBC-affiliated production company, UCP. The project, based on the 1977 film starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, is described as "an epic adventure of family, small-town crime, unlikely heroes, legend and legacy. Inspired by the genre of 70s and 80s drive-in double-features, the series explores the crossroads where humble realities meet those larger-than-life, all in a blast of tailpipe exhaust." Green will direct the pilot and co-write with Brian Sides, while Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins of Fuzzy Door will executive produce.
The short-form streaming series, Quibi, is shutting down as of December 1 after less than a year in operation. Launched in April in the early weeks of pandemic shutdowns, the subscription service targeting teenagers and young adults never gained any traction for shows told in under-10-minute "quick bites" meant to be consumed on smartphones — despite the involvement of big stars like Kevin Hart, Anna Kendrick, and Liam Hemsworth. The service raised nearly $2 billion and included such programs as the thrillers, Most Dangerous Game, Survive, The Fugitive, and Wireless; the crime drama, #FreeRayshawn; and the psychological thriller, The Stranger.
Netflix has put a third season of Mindhunter on "indefinite hold." Created by Joe Penhall, Mindhunter is based on the true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, written by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, and stars Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Anna Torv.
James Cusati-Moyer has booked a recurring role on Netflix’s upcoming limited series, Inventing Anna. The ten-episode series from Scandal creator, Shonda Rhimes, adapts the New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler about Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Anna Delvey, the 28-year-old who faked being a German heiress to swindle New York elite out of more than $200,000. Cusati-Moyer will play Val, a stylist and fashion director who experiences firsthand the whiplash of a whirlwind friendship with Anna.
Maura Tierney (The Affair) is set to recur on Showtime's Your Honor, the limited legal drama. Bryan Cranston stars as Michael Desiato, a respected judge whose son is involved in a hit-and-run in New Orleans that leads to a high-stakes game of lies, deceit, and impossible choices. Tierney plays Fiona McKee, a fearless prosecutor trying a major case in Desiato’s courtroom in four episodes of the show.
A trailer has been released for The Flight Attendant, based on Chris Bohjalian's novel. HBO Max will premiere the eight-episode limited series, starring and produced by Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory), November 26. The cast also includes Michiel Huisman, Rosie Perez, Zosia Mamet, Michelle Gomez, T.R. Knight, and Colin Woode.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Read or Dead hosts, Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham, mourned the ending of The President is Missing adaptation, celebrated some revivals and reboots, and talked about their love of audiobooks.
Debbi Mack interviewed crime and suspense writer, A.C. Frieden, on the Crime Cafe podcast. A native of Switzerland, he's earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in molecular biology, two law degrees, and got his pilot's certificate and scuba instructor license.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring part of the first chapter of the Halloween-appropriate, Lipstick, Lies & Dead Guys by Jennifer Fischetto, as read by actor Teya Juarez.
The latest edition of Criminal Mischief: The Art and Science of Crime Fiction, hosted by Dr. DP Lyle, tackled the subject of "Nasty Deadly Poisons."
Suspense Radio spoke with John Gilstrap about book twelve in the Jonathan Grave series, Hellfire.
Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Rick Mofina, a former journalist who has interviewed murderers on death row, flown over Los Angeles with the LAPD and patrolled with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police near the Arctic. Rick’s novel, Missing Daughter, just won the 2020 Barry Award for Best Paperback Original Mystery/Crime Novel.
The Gay Mystery Podcast's featured guest was Frank W. Butterfield, the Amazon best-selling author of over sixty novels, novellas, and short stories, including the Nick Williams Mystery Series.
Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, spoke with Beau Johnson about his short story collection, All of Them to Burn.
The Tartan Noir Show's guest this week was Graeme Macrae Burnet, whose second novel, His Bloody Project, was shorted-listed for the Booker Prize.
Writer's Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about running partial license plates; manner/cause/mechanism of death; and using the Peter Principle in your character creation.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Michelle Cox, author of the multiple award-winning Henrietta and Inspector Howard series as well as "Novel Notes of Local Lore," a weekly blog dedicated to Chicago's forgotten residents.
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