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
Bruce Willis and John Travolta are teaming up for the first time since Pulp Fiction in the Chuck Russell-directed action film, Paradise City. Willis plays renegade bounty hunter, Ryan Swan, who must carve his way through the Hawaiian crime world to wreak vengeance on the kingpin who murdered his father (played by Travolta). Deadline noted that the project is billed as "being similar to Miami Vice but with bounty hunters instead of cops." Thai actress and model, Praya Lundberg, has landed the lead female role.
Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, and Kathryn Hahn are set to join Daniel Craig in the next Knives Out installment from Netflix. Dave Bautista was also recently cast, joining Craig who is reprising the role of super sleuth Benoit Blanc. Rian Johnson is back to write and direct the pic and will produce with his partner Ram Bergman. Plot details for the sequel are unknown at this time, other then Craig’s Blanc returning to solve another mystery revolving around a large cast of suspects. It is also unknown who Norton, Bautista, Monáe, and Hahn will be playing in the project.
Russell Crowe has committed to star in Poker Face, a Gary Fleder-directed thriller. The film has Crowe playing Jake, a tech billionaire who gathers his childhood friends to his Miami estate for what turns into a high stakes game of poker. Those friends have a love-hate relationship with the host, a master game-player/planner who has concocted an elaborate scheme designed to bring a certain justice to all of them. However, Jake finds himself re-thinking his strategy when his Miami mansion is overtaken by a dangerous home invader whose previous jobs have all ended in murder and arson.
Focus Features has set The Northman for release in April 2022. The film is a Viking revenge drama directed by Robert Eggers that stars Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Björk, the Icelandic singer who is appearing in her first film since 2005. It was shot in Iceland and is described as an "epic revenge thriller" that explores how far a Viking prince will go to seek justice for his murdered father.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Working Title Television has nabbed rights to Stacey Abrams’s new novel, While Justice Sleeps, to adapt as a television series. The legal thriller follows Avery Keene, a brilliant young law clerk for the legendary Justice Howard Wynn, who is doing her best to excel in an arduous job with the court while also dealing with a troubled family. When the shocking news breaks that Wynn – the cantankerous swing vote on many current high-profile cases – has slipped into a coma, Avery’s life turns upside down. She is immediately notified that Wynn has left her with power of attorney and instructions for her to serve as his legal guardian.
Netflix and Legendary Productions are moving forward with a sequel to Enola Holmes, and Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill are set to reprise their roles as Enola and Sherlock Holmes. Harry Bradbeer is returning to direct, with Jack Thorne, who penned the first, writing the script for the sequel. The film is based on Nancy Springer’s Edgar Award-nominated book series, The Enola Holmes Mysteries, which comprises six books in total.
Peacock is back for more of the dramedy private eye series, Psych, ordering a third movie based on the cult favorite USA series. Psych 3: This Is Gus will be the second film to be available on the NBCUniversal-backed streaming service. In preparation for a shotgun wedding before the birth of Baby Guster, Shawn (James Roday Rodriguez) and Groomzilla Gus (Dulé Hill) go rogue in an attempt to track down Selene’s (Jazmyn Simon) estranged husband, as Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) grapples with the future of his career.
24's Kiefer Sutherland will play a private spy in his latest TV series in an untitled espionage drama that has been ordered by Paramount+. It is Sutherland’s latest small-screen role after a brief stint on Quibi’s The Fugitive, which premiered on the short-lived shortform service last August. The series stars Sutherland as private espionage operative, James Weir, who finds himself in the midst of a battle over the preservation of democracy in a world at odds with misinformation, behavioral manipulation, the surveillance state, and the interests that control these extraordinary powers.
In more Paramount+ news, CBS announced that the dramas SEAL Team and Clarice will be moving from CBS to the streaming service in their next seasons. Clarice, based on the character from The Silence of the Lambs by author Thomas Harris, will move to Paramount+ beginning with its upcoming second season. SEAL Team, currently in its 4th season, will kick off season 5 in the fall with a run of episodes aired on CBS, before making the jump to Paramount+.
CBS also announced it is cancelling All Rise after two seasons. All Rise followed the chaotic, hopeful, and sometimes absurd lives of its judges, prosecutors, and public defenders, as they work with bailiffs, clerks, and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal process. It starred Simone Missick as Judge Lola Carmichael.
ITV announced lead casting for the adaptation of Val McDermid’s DS Karen Pirie series (based on the author's first Pirie novel, The Distant Echo). Outlander actress, Lauren Lyle, will play Pirie, who is tasked with reopening an historic murder investigation that has been the subject of a provocative true crime podcast.
Betty Gilpin and Dan Stevens have joined the cast of Starz’s upcoming Watergate series, Gaslit. Based on Slate’s "Slow Burn" podcast, Gaslit stars Sean Penn as Richard Nixon’s loyal attorney general, John Mitchell, with Julia Roberts playing Mitchell’s Arkansan socialite wife, Martha. Gilpin and Stevens will play the infamous couple, Mo and John Dean, the young duo who were wrapped up in the political scandal while John was serving as a White House lawyer under the Nixon administration. Also joining the cast as series regulars are Shea Whigham as G. Gordon Liddy and Darby Camp as Marty Mitchell.
Brian Van Holt has been tapped for a key role opposite Kate McKinnon’s Carole Baskin and John Cameron Mitchell’s Joe "Exotic" Schreibvogel in Joe Exotic (working title), Peacock’s limited series based on the Wondery podcast. Holt will play John Reinke, the zoo manager at Joe’s (Mitchell) zoo, a loyal worker and friend until things go too far.
Amazon announced that the seventh and final season of the acclaimed cop drama, Bosch, will launch all eight episodes on Amazon Prime June 25. The series is based on the novels by Michael Connelly and stars Titus Welliver as Detective Harry Bosch.
ABC cancelled the legal drama, For Life, but Sony Pictures TV, which co-produces the show with ABC Signature, said they will shop the series to other buyers including Hulu. The series was inspired by the life of Isaac Wright Jr., who was wrongfully convicted as a drug kingpin but got his conviction overturned while in prison and became a licensed attorney. The show centers on an imprisoned man, Aaron Wallace (played by Nicholas Pinnock), who becomes a lawyer litigating cases for other inmates while fighting to overturn his own life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.
Five episodes into its freshman run, ABC’s Katey Sagal-starring drama Rebel has also been cancelled. Inspired by the life of activist Erin Brockovich, the series centers on Annie "Rebel" Bello (Sagal), a blue-collar legal advocate without a law degree. She’s a funny, messy, brilliant and fearless woman who cares desperately about the causes she fights for and the people she loves.
ABC also took a pass on the crime drama pilot, Acts of Crime, written and directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail. The project was described as "a unique spin on the crime procedural," although no other details had been revealed.
However, ABC has picked up a fourth season of cop drama, The Rookie. Created by Alexi Hawley, The Rookie stars Nathan Fillion as John Nolan, the oldest rookie at the Los Angeles Police Department.
NBC has given a second-season order to Law & Order: Organized Crime, the series that brought Christopher Meloni’s Elliot Stabler character back to the venerable franchise for the first time in 10 years. The show revolves around the NYPD organized crime unit led by Stabler, with Danielle Moné Truitt, Tamara Taylor, Ainsley Seiger, and Dylan McDermott also starring.
Fox has ordered the anthology series, Accused, from Howard Gordon, Alex Gansa, and Alex Shore, the minds behind House and 24. The project is based on the BBC’s BAFTA-winning crime anthology, where each episode opens in a courtroom, with the accused not knowing their crime or how they ended up on trial, and is told from the defendant’s point of view.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Gar Anthony Haywood, author of In Things Unseen, was interviewed by Robert Justice on the Crime Writers of Color podcast.
The latest Mysteryrats Maze podcast features the first chapter of the mystery novel, In Dog We Trust, by Neil Plakcy, as read by actor Thomas Nance.
Suspense Radio welcomed Phillip Margolin to the show for the first time to talk about his latest book, A Matter of Life and Death.
Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Carter Wilson, author of seven critically acclaimed, standalone psychological thrillers, including his latest, The Dead Husband.
P. J. Vernon was the featured guest on Queer Writers of Crime. Called a "rising star thriller writer" by Library Journal, Vernon's debut, When You Find Me, was both an Audible Plus #1 Listen and an Associated Press Top Ten U.S. Audiobook.
Wrong Place, Write Crime spoke with Abir Mukherjee about his award-winning historical Wyndham and Banerjee series, his podcast (The Red Hot Chili Writers), tolerance, laziness, and a little bit of both Scottish and British history.
My Favorite Detective Stories sat down virtually with Lisa Gray, who previously worked as the Chief Scottish Football Writer at the Press Association and books columnist at the Daily Record Saturday Magazine. Her debut novel, Thin Air, was a besteseller, with the follow-up novel, Bad Memory, long-listed for the McIlvanney Prize.
Writer's Detective Bureau host, Adam Richardson, talked about processing a crime scene in a car when it's raining; who works a homicide case involving a white-collar crime suspect; strategies for writers to engage with cops about writing; and details about the two new courses he's launching this summer.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club discussed The Last Tea Bowl Thief by Jonelle Patrick.
Edgar Award Winner, Rosalie Knecht, talked to Crime Time FM host, Paul Burke, about her new novel, Who is Vera Kelly; New York in the 60s; CIA and US foreign policy; and noir fiction.
Comments