Summer is a bit of a slow season when it comes to movie and TV news, and it has given me a chance to review all of the various crime drama news items over the past year or two. In so doing, I realized that the sheer volume of such projects is pretty darn huge these days. That's partly due to the popularity of crime fiction, but also due to the proliferation of streaming services and new cable networks. And since my blog is more about promoting crime fiction books and authors (and writing and research), I'm going to focus a little more on book adaptations in the news recap.
So, without further ado, here's a roundup of crime book-related media and adaptation news:
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Bohemia Group has optioned film rights to Stephen King’s bestseller, The Regulators, tapping George Cowan to adapt the horror-thriller for the big screen. First published in 1996, The Regulators is the story of the peaceful suburban life on Poplar Street in Wentworth, Ohio that is shattered one day when four vans containing shotgun-wielding "regulators" terrorize the street’s residents, cold-bloodedly killing anyone foolish enough to venture outdoors. Houses mysteriously transform into log cabins and the street now ends in what looks like a child’s hand-drawn western landscape. Masterminding this sudden onslaught is an evil creature who has taken over the body of an autistic boy whose parents were killed in a drive-by shooting several months earlier.
Ryan Phillippe (The Locksmith) has signed on for a key role opposite Bella Thorne in Mitzi Peirone’s thriller, Saint Clare, based on Don Roff’s hit novel, Clare at 16. Rebecca De Mornay (Lucifer), Frank Whaley (Pulp Fiction), Bart Johnson (High School Musical) and Dylan Flashner (The Card Counter) will co-star in the film, slated for release in North American theaters in 2023. Saint Clare follows Clare Bleecker (Thorne), a quiet catholic college student with a divine vocation for killing. Phillippe will play the role of Timmons, a police officer investigating the latest murder in the small town, with Clare as his prime suspect. Whaley will portray Mailman Bob, a ghost from Clare’s past, with Johnson pulling double duty as twin brothers Joe and Randall, and Flashner set for the supporting role of Wade. Peirone adapted the film project with American Psycho's Guinevere Turner.
Emily Blunt is set to star opposite Ryan Gosling in The Fall Guy film adaptation for Universal, with Hobbs & Shaw filmmaker, David Leitch, attached to direct. Production for the film is set to begin in Australia this fall with a theatrical release date set for Friday, March 1, 2024. The feature film is inspired by the classic 1980s TV series of the same name that starred Lee Majors as a stuntman who did bounty hunter work on the side, utilizing his Hollywood skills. Drew Pearce, who co-wrote Hobbs & Shaw, will write the screenplay for The Fall Guy, though no other plot details were immediately available. The original series was created by Glen A. Larson, who was also responsible for many other crime dramas from the 1960s through the early 2000's, as well as being a co-writer on several tie-in novelizations.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
ABC has picked up the drama pilot, Will Trent (working title), to series for a mid-season launch. Based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling "Will Trent" book series, the project stars Ramón Rodriguez as Special Agent Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI), who was abandoned at birth and endured a harsh coming-of-age in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system. But now, determined to use his unique point of view to make sure no one is abandoned like he was, Trent has the highest clearance rate in the GBI. Deadline also reported that the creators wanted to go for a more serialized storytelling, featuring plots that play out over multi-episode arcs, but ABC pushed for stand-alone episodes.
Apple TV+ is nearing a series order for Sinking Spring starring Brian Tyree Henry. The series is being written by Peter Craig (Top Gun: Maverick), marking his first move into television, and will be directed by Ridley Scott. Based on Dennis Tafoya’s book, Dope Thief, the series follows long-time Philadelphia friends and delinquents who pose as DEA agents to rob a house in the countryside, only to have their small-time grift become a life-and-death enterprise after they unwittingly reveal the biggest hidden narcotics corridor on the Eastern seaboard.
PBS Masterpiece and ITV have renewed Grantchester for an eighth season. Set in a small English village, the show stars Robson Green as DI Geordie Keating and Tom Brittney as Reverend Will Davenport. In season eight of the popular long-running series, Will starts off the happiest he’s ever been but his world is rocked by a terrible accident while Geordie’s happiness will be threatened by shocking accidents at work. Grantchester is based on The Grantchester Mysteries, a series of crime fiction short story collections by the British author James Runcie, set during the 1950s in Grantchester, a village near Cambridge.
Max Martini is set for a key recurring role opposite Titus Welliver on the upcoming second season of Bosch: Legacy, the spinoff of the long-running Amazon series based on Michael Connelly's novels. Legacy follows Welliver as retired homicide detective turned private investigator Harry Bosch, as he embarks on the next chapter of his career. He's aided by attorney Honey "Money" Chandler (Mimi Rogers), who struggles to maintain her faith in the justice system after surviving an attempted murder, and Harry's daughter, Maddie Bosch (Madison Lintz) who discovers the possibilities and challenges of being a rookie patrol cop on the streets of Los Angeles. Martini will play Detective Don Ellis, a hardened vice cop in the LAPD, who's not above getting down and dirty with the criminals he polices to get the job done.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Bubbles Baubles," written by Elaine Faber and read by actor Thomas Nance.
Regular Read or Dead host Nusrah and guest host, Kendra, discussed mystery and suspense works in translation in honor of Women in Translation Month.
Meet the Thriller Author interviewed Julie Clark, author of the bestselling The Last Flight. Her latest novel, The Lies I Tell, follows a brilliant con-artist with a long list of victims under her belt who returns home to Los Angeles to carry out her biggest job of all: getting revenge on the man who ruined her childhood.
Spybrary host, Shane Whaley, spoke with award-winning spy author, Dan Fesperman, who revealed more about the real-life espionage events that inspired his latest novel, Winter Work, set in Berlin in 1990.
On Queer Writers of Crime, Laury profiled a series that doesn't give her the blues, the Blue McCarron Mystery Series by Agatha Award-winning author, Abigal Padget, with the third installment due out this month.
My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Wendall Thomas, who teaches in the Graduate Film School at UCLA and has worked as an entertainment reporter, development executive, script consultant, and film and television writer. Her first Cyd Redondo novel, Lost Luggage, was nominated for the Lefty and Macavity Awards for Best Debut Mystery of 2017. Her second, Drowned Under, was nominated for a Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery of 2019 and an Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original.
In the season two finale of Crime Time FM, Polly Phillips (The Reunion), Harriet Tyce (It Ends at Midnight), and TM Logan (The Curfew) discussed bringing out the worst in each other, long held resentments, trigger events, gaslighting, crabs in a bucket, and the "white sock incident."
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