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. won a bidding war over the heist picture, The Sundance Kid Might Have Some Regrets, which Zoë Kravitz (The Batman) is attached to produce and star in. The upcoming film is based on Leyna Krow’s short story of the same name, centered on a pair of twin bank robbers. While one twin, Maggie, boasts supernatural powers including telekinesis and super-strength, her sibling heads up the operation and serves as narrator of the tale. Maggie begins to second-guess the life she and her sister lead when their latest heist goes awry.
Leigh Whannell is in negotiations to direct The Green Hornet and Kato for Universal. The studio optioned rights to The Green Hornet in the spring of 2020, after co-founders Michael Helfant and Bradley Gallo acquired control of the motion picture franchise from the family of the original creator, George W. Trendle, in a competitive bidding war. The Green Hornet was one of early radio’s most popular adventure shows (predating Superman) before being turned into 1940s movie serials and the 1966 TV series that introduced Bruce Lee (Kato) to the U.S. The classic story focuses on Britt Reid, owner-publisher of The Daily Sentinel. Armed with knowledge from his sources, cool weapons, a supercar known as the Black Beauty, and teamed with his trusty aide Kato, Reid became The Green Hornet, a vigilante crime fighter wanted by the police and feared by the criminal world.
Lionsgate has acquired movie adaptation rights to Thieves’ Gambit, an upcoming young adult thriller novel by Kayvion Lewis. Steven Caple Jr., whose directing credits include Creed 2 and the upcoming Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, is attached to helm. The book’s plot centers on a young woman, raised by her parents to be an expert thief, who must enter a dangerous, cutthroat competition that pits her against other young, talented thieves where the winner takes all.
Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Everly Carganilla, and newcomer Connor Esterson are set to star in the upcoming Spy Kids reboot from Netflix, Skydance, and Spyglass. Spy Kids creator, Robert Rodriguez, will write, direct and produce the film, which will introduce the world to a whole new family of spies. The film marks Rodriguez’s second family film with Netflix following the success of the 2020 family action film, We Can Be Heroes. This latest Spy Kids chapter is set after the children of the world’s greatest secret agents unwittingly help a powerful game developer unleash a computer virus that gives him control of all technology, leading them to become spies themselves to save their parents and the world.
Universal offered a glimpse at 2023’s Fast & Furious X, including a first look at new cast members Jason Momoa and Brie Larson. The Louis Leterrier-directed 10th installment is currently in production for release next summer.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
The BBC is partnering with Rise Films for Thank You & Goodbye, a drama based on the phone hacking scandal that rocked Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. The Salisbury Poisonings writers, Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, and director, Saul Dibb, are attached to the project. The British phone-hacking scandal was one of the most high-profile and controversial of the past decades and Rise Films gained access to journalists, private investigators, and perpetrators who were involved for the show (which started life as a documentary). Thank You & Goodbye examines the newsroom of the News of the World, the British tabloid that was forced to close due to the scandal, and how journalists hacked the private messages and voicemails of the likes of Steve Coogan, Hugh Grant, and Sienna Miller. The ensuing fallout led to a highly-publicized inquiry that sparked 100 arrests and changed the UK’s relationship with the tabloid press forever.
Paula Malcomson (Redemption) is set as a series regular opposite Giancarlo Esposito in The Driver, AMC’s remake of the British drama series that is set to launch next year on AMC and AMC+. The U.S. series comes from creators Danny Brocklehurst and Sunu Gonera and showrunner, Theo Travers. It stars Esposito as a taxi driver whose life is turned upside down when he agrees to chauffer a New Orleans-based Zimbabwean gangster notorious for exploiting undocumented immigrants at the U.S. southern ports. The 2014 British series similarly followed star David Morrissey as a cabbie whose life is turned upside down when he agrees to be the driver for a criminal gang.
Dark Winds, the Native-led Western noir crime thriller, has been renewed for a second season. The AMC Studios-produced series, which will return next year with another 6-episode installment, follows two Navajo police officers—Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon)—in the 1970s as they investigate a series of seemingly unrelated crimes that bring up their own personal demons. Jessica Matten also stars as Sgt. Bernadette Manuelito. An adaptation of the Leaphorn & Chee book series by Tony Hillerman, the production worked closely with the Navajo Nation to film on location on tribal lands in New Mexico—Tesuque Pueblo and Cochiti Pueblo. Ordered to series last year, Dark Winds was 35 years in the making, with executive producer Robert Redford optioning Hillerman’s book collection more than three decades ago. Along with Redford, the series is executive produced by creator Graham Roland, George R.R. Martin, Anne Hillerman, Chris Eyre, Vince Calandra, Vince Gerardis, Tina Elmo, and Zahn McClarnon (who also is portraying Leaphorn).
Shoshannah Stern, star of Sundance Now’s This Close, the first major U.S. series to be created and written by deaf people, is back at AMC Networks, developing Disquiet, a drama thriller series about a Certified Deaf Interpreter. Deadline reported that the project, which Stern is attached to star in, write, and exec produce, is in the early stages of development at the network. The series follows Cassie Edwards, a Certified Deaf Interpreter (CDI), who is called back home to assist in a case involving the mysterious death of the former head of the school for the Deaf she herself attended. A former student of the school is the only witness and Cassie may be the only one who is able to understand him, leading her deeper into the case and forcing her to confront her own past.
Kevin Zegers has been tapped as a series regular on ABC’s new series, The Rookie: Feds, headlined by Niecy Nash-Betts. Co-created by Alexi Hawley and Terence Paul Winter, The Rookie: Feds stars Nash-Betts as Simone Clark, the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy. The spinoff was introduced in a two-episode arc on Season 4 of The Rookie, where Officer John Nolan (Nathan Fillion) and the LA division of the FBI enlist the help of Simone Clark when one of her former students is a suspect in a terror attack. Zegers joins Nash-Betts, Frankie Faison, and Felix Solis, who guest starred in the Rookie backdoor pilot episodes as Christopher “Cutty” Clark and Special Agent Matthew Garza, respectively, as well as Britt Robertson, who recently joined the project as a new series regular, playing Laura Stensen. Zegers will play Brendon Acres, who is fresh out of Quantico with a lot to prove.
Paramount Global’s streaming service Paramount+ is continuing to invest in original content sourced from international markets, unveiling a slate of seven new titles with plans to commission 150 international originals by 2025. The slate includes several crime dramas, far too many to be summarized in a list, but some of the headliners include a drama with John Leguizamo starring as Mexican drug lord, El Chapo. You can check them all out here. The streamer also revealed casting details for the previously announced The Chemistry of Death, a psychological crime series based on Simon Beckett’s best-selling novels, which will star Harry Treadaway (Penny Dreadful, Star Trek: Picard) as forensic anthropologist David Hunter, alongside Katie Leung, Jeanne Goursaud, Nick Blood, Amy Nuttall, David Hayman, and Hardy Krüger, Jr.
CBS announced its 2022-23 fall season, which will debut on September 19 with four new shows and 18 returning series, including the 20th season of NCIS. New time periods were also assigned to Ghosts, S.W.A.T., NCIS: Los Angeles, and CSI: Las Vegas.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up, featuring an excerpt from Pint of No Return by Dana Mentink, read by actor Ariel Linn.
Speaking of Mysteries chatted with Dwyer Murphy about his debut novel, An Honest Living, which takes readers on an odyssey through time and space in turn-of-the-21st-century New York City, complete with its own Ulises (Ulysses), who just happens to be a Venezuelan poet. Along this journey, with nods to past noir novelists such as Ross Macdonald and Raymond Chandler, are cases of mistaken identity, missing manuscripts, and doses of wry humor about the nature of cabaret laws in New York City that prevent dancing in bars, even when there’s a Samba band.
Lev Raphael returned to Queer Writers of Crime to talk with Brad about having his full Nick Hoffman Academia Mystery Series republished; historical misquotations; research; the joy of mingling with other mystery authors, and more.
On Wrong Place Write Crime, guest co-host, Colin Conway, joined Frank Zafiro to interview Mark Bergin, who discusses his time as a law enforcement officer, as well as his novel, Apprehension. Also, Lance at Down and Out Books provided a June publishing update.
On Writers Detective Bureau, Detective Adam Richardson talked about sketching a crime scene; how immigration status violations were handled in California circa 1995; and what would happen if a journalist went trespassing to get the scoop on a major crime.
Emilya Naymark stopped by My Favorite Detective Stories to discuss her latest novel, Behind the Lie.
Red Hot Chili Writers discussed serial killer thrillers with crime writer David Fennell; chatted about the Jaipur Lit Fest and the Borders Book Fest; tackled the heatwave; and were rudely interrupted by a famous writer with no opposable thumbs.
On Crime Time FM, Paul Burke spoke with Canadian author, Laurie Petrou, about her new novel Stargazer; toxic friendships; the limits of art; and canoes.
Karen Odden was interviewed on It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club about Down a Dark River, the first book in the Inspector Corravan series.
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