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
Emmy and SAG winning actress, Debra Messing, is in advance talks to join the Warner Bros mob drama, Wise Guys, taking on the role of Bobbie, the faithful wife of Robert De Niro kingpin, Frank Costello. Wise Guys is a period piece that follows the story of Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, a pair of Italian Americans running two separate crime families during the mid-20th century. Genovese tried and failed to assassinate Costello in 1957, though the latter wound up taking his leave from the mob after being injured during the attempt on his life. De Niro is reportedly playing both roles.
20th Century Studios has announced the ensemble cast of A Haunting in Venice, director Kenneth Branagh’s third installment in his series of Hercule Poirot films based on Agatha Christie novels. Branagh will reprise his role as Poirot, with Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Michelle Yeoh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, and Riccardo Scamarico rounding out the cast. Inspired by Christie’s Hallowe’en Party, the story is set in post-WWII Venice on All Hallows’ Eve, where the now-retired Poirot, living in self-imposed exile, reluctantly attends a séance at a haunted palazzo—where one of the guests is murdered
Following a competitive bidding war, Universal Pictures has landed the rights to Marcus Kliewer’s short story, "The Caretaker," with Sydney Sweeney attached to star and produce and Karl Gajdusek adapting the script. Like Kliewer's previous short story, "We Used to Live Here," the new story was published on Reddit where it was snapped up in a huge deal. "The Caretaker" tells the story of a young woman who accepts a caretaking job from Craigslist and quickly discovers her responsibilities have stakes far greater—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined.
Gaia Scodellaro is set to join Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning in Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer 3 for Sony Pictures. Written by Richard Wenk, the film will be released in theaters on Sept. 1, 2023, and delves more into the mysterious past of Denzel Washington’s enigmatic avenging angel, all while taking him on a global adventure.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
A high-profile TV series project based on Herbert Asbury’s 1927 non-fiction book, The Gangs of New York, is headed for streaming on Miramax Television. Oscar winner, Martin Scorsese, who directed the 2002 feature adaptation of the book, is attached to executive produce the potential series and direct the first two episodes. Details about the drama, from playwright/TV writer Brett Leonard, are sketchy but Deadline reported this is a new take on the story with characters who weren't featured in the movie (that starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz). Asbury’s book details the confrontations between rival gangs in New York in the mid- to late-1800s, prior to the domination of the Italian-American Mafia during Prohibition in the 1920s. Scorsese was previously attached to a different TV series adaptation of The Gangs Of New York, whose development was also announced by rights holder Miramax in 2013. It was to follow organized gangs not only in New York but in other cities such as Chicago and New Orleans and chronicle the birth of organized crime in America.
Channel 4 has cast Harry Potter's Natalia Tena and BAFTA winner, Chanel Cresswell, as Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney in its upcoming "Wagatha Christie" courtroom drama, with Michael Sheen set to play high-profile barrister David Sherborne. Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama will recreate the high-stakes UK High Court defamation case between the two earlier this year, in which Rooney famously tried to call out Vardy for selling news stories about her to the tabloids using sleuth tactics, thus dubbed Wagatha Christie. The pair’s husbands, the England footballers Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy, will be played by Dion Lloyd and Marci Nagyszokolyai, while Simon Coury will play Rooney’s barrister, Hugh Tomlinson. There has been huge media interest in the case since it wrapped in July, with Vardy losing and having to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds. Both Discovery+ and Disney+ have greenlit documentaries about the case.
Michael Beach (Dahmer: Monster), Joshua Colley (Senior Year), and Lindsey Gort (All Rise) have joined the cast of Dead Boy Detectives, HBO Max’s upcoming drama series based on the DC Comics characters created by Neil Gaiman, in key recurring roles. The trio will join series stars George Rexstrew, Jayden Revri, and Kassius Nelson in the eight-part series that explores loss, grief, and death through the lens of Edwin Payne (Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Revri), two dead British teenagers, and their very alive friend, Crystal Palace (Nelson). As Deadline describes it, it’s "a lot like a vintage detective series—only darker and on acid."
Hulu’s The Hardy Boys is coming to an end and will conclude with its third season on the streamer, set to air next year. The story will pick up after the cliffhanger of the Season 2 finale, as the Hardys continue piecing together their great-grandfather’s map to find a powerful relic and keep it away from evil. The third and final season will also welcome a guest star in Bailee Madison (Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin). She’ll play Drew Darrow, a "fun but often frustrating new ally with a brilliant mind and appetite for magic and mysteries." Madison joins returning cast members Rohan Campbell, Alexander Elliot, Keana Lyn, Adam Swain, Cristian Perry, Riley O’Donnell, and Krista Nazaire.
Hulu has ordered ten episodes of Interior Chinatown, a drama series from 20th Television and creator/exec producer Charles Yu, who wrote the 2020 bestseller of the same name. Jimmy O. Yang (Crazy Rich Asians) will star, and Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) will direct the pilot and executive produce. Yang will play Willis Wu, a background actor in a procedural cop show called Black & White. Relegated to the background, Willis goes through the motions of his on-screen job, waiting tables and dreaming about a whole world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, and in the process discovers what it feels like to be in the spotlight.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Speaking of Mysteries chatted with Susan Elia MacNeal about her just-published stand-alone thriller, Mother, Daughter, Traitor, Spy. Inspired by the true story of mother and daughter Grace and Sylvia Comfort—who risked their lives to infiltrate Nazi strongholds in Los Angeles during World War II—MacNeal spins their tale into a story of treason and sedition that is as chilling as it is prescient.
The Red Hot Chili Writers paid tribute to the late Booker-winning novelist Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall; discussed medieval medical cures involving baked owls; and examined the Declaration of Arbroath.
My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Ausma Zehanat Khan to the podcast. In addition to holding a Ph.D. in international human rights law, Khan practiced immigration law in Toronto and has taught at Northwestern University and York University. Her novel, The Unquiet Dead won the Barry, Arthur Ellis, and RT Reviewers Choice Awards for Best First Novel. In A Deadly Divide, the fifth and latest book in the series, Detectives Khattak and Getty investigate a mosque shooting in Quebec, and explore the after-effects of a rising tide of Islamophobia in both the province and the nation. Khan also has a new crime series forthcoming with Minotaur Books which features American-Muslim detective, Inaya Rahman.
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