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
Universal Pictures is in pre-production on a drama based on "She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement," by New York Times reporters, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor. The article included details of hush money paid to cover up the sexual crimes by producer, Harvey Weinstein, and first-person accounts by actresses accusing Weinstein of non-consensual sexual indiscretions. The article would not only lead to Weinstein being sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape but also spurred the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements that are still making major impacts across the world while also completely changing the landscape of Hollywood forever.
Harry Melling, best known as Dudley from the Harry Potter franchise, is set to play a young Edgar Allan Poe in the Netflix/Scott Cooper-directed murder mystery, The Pale Blue Eye. The film is a passion project of Cooper, who has tried making it for more then a decade, and also stars Christian Bale as a veteran detective tasked with solving a series of murders that took place in 1830 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Bale’s detective partners with a detail-oriented young cadet (Melling), who will later become the world famous author we all know today.
Madelyn Cline is set to join Daniel Craig in the next installment of Knives Out, along with Dave Bautista, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, and Edward Norton, who were also recently added to the cast. Deadline first reported in March that Netflix was closing a deal north of $400 million for the next two installments, an historic deal for streamers. Rian Johnson is back to write and direct the project and Craig will reprise the role of super sleuth, Benoit Blanc.
Eiza González will star in Wolf Country, a thriller that Jennifer Fox will direct from a script by Pete Begler. González plays a young deputy who is shunned by her entire community when she uncovers a large drug haul that leads straight to a ranch belonging to the town’s lauded and beloved sheriff, her father. When he escapes custody and flees into the rugged Colorado wilderness, his daughter must track down the very man who taught her everything about right and wrong to bring him to justice.
Rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and Emmy winner, Beau Bridges, have signed on to star opposite Queen Latifah in the Netflix movie, End of the Road. Latifah stars as Brenda, who, after losing her job and being recently widowed, embarks on a cross-country trip with her family to start a new life. But in the New Mexico desert, cut off from help, they must learn to fight back when they become the targets of a mysterious killer.
Emile Hirsch and Liana Liberato have joined Thomas Jane and his daughter Harlow in the cast for the thriller, Dig. The film follows a widowed father and his daughter, who suffers from major hearing loss, as their house is set for demolition. After arriving at the construction site, they are soon taken hostage by a dangerous couple (Hirsch and Liberato), who will stop at nothing to retrieve what lies beneath the property. The father and daughter must work together to outsmart their captors and survive the grueling night.
Hayley Law and Keith Powers have joined Avan Jogia in the neo-noir thriller, Door Mouse. Also starring Famke Janssen and Donal Logue, the story centers on a woman named Mouse (Law) who is stuck in a dead-end job, doing nothing with her life and going nowhere. Mouse works at Mama’s Burlesque Club all night, where her boss Mama (Janssen) encourages her to pursue her real passion of making comics. When a friend from work goes missing and the cops do nothing about it, Mouse and her sidekick, Ugly (Powers), take it upon themselves to find out what happened to her. What they discover is that corruption runs deep, monsters are real, and that sometimes, justice is meant to be taken into your own hands.
A trailer was released for No Sudden Move, a heist thriller set in 1950s Detroit. Steven Soderbergh directs and has assembled a strong cast that includes Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Amy Seimetz, Brendan Fraser, Kieran Culkin, Noah Jupe, Julia Fox, Frankie Shaw, Ray Liotta, Bill Duke, and the late Craig "muMs" Grant. No Sudden Move will make its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival as the fest’s centerpiece movie on June 18, and it will be released as an HBO Max exclusive starting on July 1.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Chris Addison is adapting Caimh McDonnell’s The Dublin Trilogy series of novels for television. The books are set in Dublin and follow the adventures of an unlikely crime-solving trio. The first installment, A Man with One of Those Faces, tells the story of what happens to Paul Mulchrone when a simple case of mistaken identity leads him into a complicated web of intrigue in which people keep trying to kill him. The only people willing to help are Brigit Conroy, the crime-obsessed nurse who got him into the mess in the first place, and Bunny McGarry, an unconventional old-school copper with whom he has a complicated personal history.
The BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated team behind Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are set to adapt spy author Dave Hutchinson’s Fractured Europe Sequence novels into a major television series titled Europa. The series is set in a near-future Europe, which has splintered into countless tiny nation-states after being ravaged by a pandemic and economic decay. In the first book, Europe In Autumn, Rudi, a chef based out of a small restaurant in Krakow, Poland, is drawn into a new career with Les Coureurs des Bois, a shadowy organization that will move anything across any state line for a price. Soon, Rudi is in a world of "high-risk smuggling operations, where kidnappings and double-crossings are as natural as a map that constantly redraws itself."
Patrick Schwarzenegger has joined the formidable cast of The Staircase, HBO Max’s limited-series drama adaptation based on the true-crime docuseries. He joins previously announced Colin Firth, Toni Collette, Rosemarie DeWitt, Juliette Binoche, Parker Posey, Sophie Turner, and Odessa Young. The eight-episode series, from Christine director, Antonio Campos, and American Crime Story writer, Maggie Cohn, explores the life of Michael Peterson (Firth), his sprawling North Carolina family, and the suspicious death of his wife, Kathleen (Collette). Schwarzenegger will play Todd Peterson, Michael Peterson’s son.
Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton will lead the cast of Hugh Laurie’s three-part adaptation of Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? The story follows the local Vicar’s son, Bobby Jones (Poulter), and his whip-smart friend, socialite Lady Frances "Frankie" Derwent (Boynton) on their crime-solving adventure after they discover the crumpled body of a dying man who gasps the cryptic question of the title with his last breath. Armed only with a photograph of a beautiful young woman found in the dead man’s pocket, these amateur detectives pursue, and are pursued by, the answer to the mystery.
Giovanni Ribisi, Colin Hanks, and Dan Fogler will join Miles Teller and Matthew Goode in Paramount+’s upcoming limited series, The Offer. The project is based on two-time Oscar-winning producer Al Ruddy’s experience of making 1972's iconic The Godfather that Francis Ford Coppola directed and adapted with Mario Puzo from Puzo’s bestselling novel. The movie starred Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, John Cazale, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire. It was nominated for eleven Oscars and won three — including one to Ruddy for Best Picture.
Leighton Meester is set to star in Netflix’s twisty thriller, The Weekend Away, an adaptation of the novel by Sarah Alderson. The psychological thriller takes place amid a weekend getaway to Croatia that goes awry when a woman is accused of killing her best friend. As she attempts to clear her name and uncover the truth, her efforts unearth a painful secret. Alderson is adapting the screenplay, with Kim Farrant set to direct.
UK-based production company, Hillbilly Films and Television, has optioned the rights to adapt Jules Grant’s 2016 crime thriller novel, We Go Around In The Night And Are Consumed By Fire, as a limited drama series. Georgi Banks-Davies is attached to direct, while Clare McQuillan will serve as lead writer on the adaptation. The story follows Donna, a gangster, street poet, and boss of the all-female Bronte Close Gang, whose illicit profits are made by selling drugs from perfume atomizers in club toilets. Alongside single parent Carla – her best friend, trusted second-in-command and subject of her unrequited love – they carve out an empire on the toughest streets of Manchester. While the gang avoids violent turf warfare, a tragedy soon sees Donna set out to exact a violent retaliation.
Netflix and Jennifer Lopez have signed a massive deal to produce "a slate of films, television series, scripted and unscripted content, with an emphasis on projects that support diverse female actors, writers and filmmakers." The first project announced by the streamer will be Lopez’s action thriller, The Mother, which will be directed by the live-action Mulan helmer, Niki Caro. The film will have Lopez pulling a John Wick, playing a deadly assassin "who comes out of hiding to teach her daughter how to survive." Shooting gets underway this fall, with a late 2022 release on Netflix. The second project will be The Cipher, based on the thriller novel by Isabel Ojeda Maldonado. That adaptation, part of Maldonado’s series centering on her FBI agent character, Nina Guerrera, has the agent tangling with a serial killer from whom she escaped as a teen.
A month ago, Clarice was poised to move from CBS to Paramount+ with the promise of a long run for a premium version of the Silence of the Lambs sequel. Now, prospects for the series appear bleak as negotiations between the ViacomCBS streamer and co-producer MGM have reached a stalemate. Additionally, there is no viable path for Clarice to continue on CBS since the broadcast network already committed to a full slate of series for next season. It would mean the end of the road for the high-profile drama, which had already snagged a Season 2 order.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
James Patterson and Bill Clinton, authors of The President is Missing, appeared on Good Morning America and Live with Kelly and Ryan to chat up their latest co-written thriller, The President's Daughter.
The Reading and Writing podcast welcomed Les Edgerton to talk about his latest novel, Hard Times.
Speaking of Mysteries spoke with Jean Hanff Korelitz about her psychological thriller, The Plot.
Meet the Thriller Author chatted with Alma Katsu about her first spy novel, Red Widow, the logical marriage of her love of storytelling with her 30+ year career in intelligence (as a senior intelligence analyst for several U.S. agencies, including the CIA and NSA).
Mia P. Manansala stopped by the Queer Writers of Crime podcast to talk about how she uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her millennial love for pop culture in her debut novel, Arsenic and Adobo.
Wrong Place, Write Crime welcomed Cynthia Kuhn to discuss her Lila MacLean academic mysteries and her upcoming bookstore mystery series.
Robert B. McCaw was the latest guest on My Favorite Detective Stories, talking about his Koa Kane Series where the islands of Hawaii are central to the themes and concepts.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured Sarah Graves's Death by Chocolate Snickerdoodle, the fourth in the Death by Chocolate series.
James Wolff joined Crime Time FM to talk about growing up in the Middle East, spy fiction, the meaning of treachery, and his new novel, How to Betray Your Country.
The Red Hot Chili Writers interviewed crime authors Laura Shepherd-Robinson and Will Shaw, and also discussed the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, disappearances from trawlers, and why Truman Capote was jealous of Harper Lee.
THEATRE
Following an award winning run at Adelaide Fringe Festival 2021, Australia's favorite comedy magic psychic detective is back in 2 Ruby Knockers, 1 Jaded Dick: A Dirk Darrow Investigation. Based on an obscure 90-year-old short story by Dashiell Hammett, this genre-smashing play is one of the only stage shows in the world that incorporates magic effects into a story about a bank heist, and is described as "Sam Spade meets Naked Gun meets Penn & Teller." Performances run through Saturday, June 26.
As rehearsals begin this week, Peter James and producer Joshua Andrews have announced full casting for the world premiere stage production of James's best-selling novel, Looking Good Dead, based on the author's series featuring Brighton-based detective, Roy Grace. Harry Long will star as Detective Grace, joined by award-winning EastEnders star, Adam Woodyatt, and actors Gaynor Faye, Kellie Bryce, Ian Houghton, Leon Stewart, Gemma Stroyan, Luke Ward-Wilkinson, Mylo McDonald, and Natalie Boakye. The production is now set to open at the Leicester Curve on July 1, ahead of a major UK tour.
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