I apologize for the delay, but Typepad just moved to new servers, and service has been down and/or spotty for the past few days. Anyway, 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
Guy Ritchie and Jerry Bruckheimer have tapped Superman's Henry Cavill and Baby Driver star, Eiza González, to lead their World War II action spy movie, The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare. The movie is based on war correspondent and military historian Damien Lewis’s popular book of the same name and is inspired by real events, charting a secret WWII combat organization created by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and James Bond author, Ian Fleming. The clandestine squad’s unconventional and entirely "ungentlemanly" fighting techniques against the Nazis helped change the course of the war and in part gave birth to the modern Black Ops unit. Deadline reported that Ritchie and Bruckheimer are conceiving the project as a franchise.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the latest to join Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in the cast of Universal’s The Fall Guy, which has a March 1, 2024 release date. Production for the movie is set to begin in Australia this fall. The feature film is inspired by the 1980s series of the same name that starred Lee Majors, Douglas Barr, and Heather Thomas as Hollywood stunt performers who moonlight as bounty hunters.
The first trailer dropped for the gothic murder-mystery film, The Pale Blue Eye, based on Louis Bayard’s 2006 historical fiction novel of the same name. The Pale Blue Eye takes place in 1830 at the United States’ famed Military Academy, West Point. An unknown killer is stalking the campus, slaying several members of the school, which leads to the arrival of a detective (Christian Bale) in hopes of solving the case. But, all is not as it seems at the well-disciplined academy as the detective begins to unravel a tangled web of secrets. In the middle of it all, penning the horrific happenings into prose form, is a young cadet named Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling). The film also stars Robert Duvall, Gillian Anderson, and Lucy Boynton.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
FX has given a green light to The Bends, a drama pilot from Homicide creator, Paul Attanasio, and Fargo executive producer, Warren Littlefield. Written by Attanasio and based on the novel Killing Ground by Gerald Seymour, the thriller series follows a seemingly perfect American family in Berlin whose secrets come to light when they hire a new nanny, unaware that she is trying to expose the parents’ corrupt financial and familial ties. Mike Barker (Hit & Run) will direct the pilot.
Amazon Studios has ordered a new Alex Cross series, with Aldis Hodge (Black Adam, One Night In Miami) set to portray the titular character. The project is based on the best-selling book series by James Patterson featuring Alex Cross, a detective and forensic psychologist uniquely capable of digging into the psyches of killers and their victims, in order to identify—and ultimately capture—the murderers. A doting father and family man, Cross is single-minded to the point of obsession when he hunts killers. The Alex Cross book series has previously been adapted for film with Morgan Freeman serving as the first actor to bring the character to life in 1997’s Kiss The Girls and again in 2001’s Along Came a Spider. Tyler Perry followed with the 2012 reboot film, Alex Cross.
The reason Aldis Hodge is available to star in the Alex Cross series is that his most recent project, City on a Hill, was just cancelled by Showtime after 3 Seasons. The '90s-set crime drama starred Hodge along with Kevin Bacon and was based on an idea by Ben Affleck and creator, Charlie MacLean. The drama launched in 2019 and featured Bacon as a retired FBI agent working with a city prosecutor (Hodge) solving crimes in Boston. Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Barry Levinson executive produced alongside showrunner Tom Fontana, Bacon, and Hodge.
Mike Caron's new production company has set a small-screen adaptation of the mystery series Monster Kid Detective Squad as one of his first projects. Monster Kid Detective Squad is set in Frightsville and follows characters such as Elsie Frankenstein, a super-strong young monster, Sherry Dracula, a young, headstrong vampire, and Rico Gillman, a young sea monster. The book series is written by Jason Henderson and In Churl Yo and published by Castle Bridge Media.
Betsy Brandt and Michael Park have joined the cast of Hulu’s psychological drama series, Saint X, adapted from Alexis Schaitkin’s novel. The eight-part drama is told via multiple timelines and perspectives and explores and upends the girl-gone-missing genre as it explains how a young woman’s mysterious death during an idyllic Caribbean vacation creates a traumatic ripple effect that eventually pulls her surviving sister into a dangerous pursuit of the truth. Brandt and Park will play Mia Thomas and Bill Thomas, upper middle class parents of two, enjoying a family vacation in a Caribbean resort until one of their daughters goes missing.
Lana Parrilla (Why Women Kill) and Yaya DaCosta (Chicago Med) have joined the cast of Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer for Season 2 in recurring roles. Parrilla will play Lisa Trammell, a beloved chef and community advocate struggling to keep her restaurant afloat as a predatory real estate developer threatens the neighborhood around her. DaCosta will portray Andrea Freemann, a cut-throat prosecutor and Mickey Haller’s (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) undefeated courtroom rival, who is also a friend of his ex-wife Maggie (Neve Campbell). Based on the series of bestselling novels by Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer follows the redemption of Haller, a Los Angeles attorney who regains much of what he lost due to addiction with hard work and hustle. His success is also thanks to his devoted supporters: his ex-wives Maggie (Neve Campbell) and Lorna (Becki Newton), his driver and unofficial sponsor Izzy (Jazz Raycole), and the best investigator in town—and Lorna’s newly minted fiancé—Cisco (Angus Sampson).
Peacock debuted the first teaser for Poker Face, the murder mystery drama created by Rian Johnson, and announced the series will premiere on Jan. 26 with four episodes followed by weekly drops on Thursdays. A 10-episode mystery-of-the-week series, Poker Face follows Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), who has an extraordinary ability to determine when someone is lying. She hits the road with her Plymouth Barracuda and with every stop encounters a new cast of characters and strange crimes she can’t help but solve. The cast of guest stars includes Adrien Brody, Benjamin Bratt, Chloë Sevigny, Nick Nolte, Rhea Perlman, Ron Perlman, and many more.
Last week, I reported that The Hardy Boys series on Hulu had been cancelled after three seasons, and now it appears that the Nancy Drew series on The CW Network is also ending after season 4. The decision to end Nancy Drew is not unexpected, and the Season 4 finale has been crafted as a "satisfying series finale." Nancy Drew follows the legendary teen detective (Kennedy McMann) as she solves mysteries – both earthbound and supernatural – in her haunted hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Maine. Also starring were Scott Wolf, Leah Lewis, Maddison Jaizani, Tunji Kasim, Alex Saxon, and Riley Smith.
Fox has unveiled the first promo for its upcoming anthology drama, Accused, a project which hails from 24 executive producers, Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, and House creator, David Shore. The series is based on the BBC’s crime anthology where each episode opens in a courtroom on the accused without knowing their crime or how they ended up on trial. In the Fox version, which is keeping the original’s anthology format, viewers discover how an ordinary person got caught up in an extraordinary situation, ultimately revealing how one wrong turn leads to another until it’s too late to turn back. The stellar cast includes Rachel Bilson, Whitney Cummings, Abigail Breslin, Michael Chiklis, Margo Martindale, Molly Parker, Rhea Perlman, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and more.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
On the latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast, Debbi Mack interviewed travel memoir and crime writer, Sherry Knowlton, author of the Alexa Williams suspense novels.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured "Rapid Reviews October 2022."
On Read or Dead, Katie and Kendra discussed novels with villain POV characters.
Intelligence historian and author, Nigel West, joined Spybrary podcast host, Shane Whaley, to share more about his latest book, Spies Who Changed History; plus, he answered questions on the Wilson Coup, the Steele Dossier, meeting Anthony Blunt, and many more topics.
My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Catriona McPherson, author of the Dandy Gilver historical detective stories, the Last Ditch mysteries set in California, and several contemporary standalone novels including the Edgar-finalist, The Day She Died, and the Mary Higgins Clark finalist, Strangers at the Gate.
Writers Detective Bureau host, Detective Adam Richardson, interviewed Matthew Gentile about writing and directing his new feature film, American Murderer. This true-crime inspired movie stars Tom Pelphrey, Ryan Phillippe, Idina Menzel, and Jackie Weaver.
On Crime Time FM, Paul Burke looked at the latest crime fiction titles for September and October, which includes a tour of the world of crime fiction from America to Asia via Europe and Australia and across two millennia.
The latest episode of Red Hot Chili Writers featured a chat with auhors Claire McGowan and David Beckler; a discussion of the Sri Lankan winner of this year's Booker Prize; and a reflection on Ireland's infamous "vanishing triangle" disappearances of women in the 1990s.
CW has also cancelled STARGIRL.
My son and I are hoping they do not cancel THE CORONER as we like that one a lot, but since they recently announced after the merger the were getting out of scripted shows, we expect them to end this one too.
Posted by: Kevin Ralton Tipple | November 01, 2022 at 10:03 AM
I had actually missed the news about STARGIRL. I'm afraid things don't look good for THE CORONER, either, since when I checked just now, it was down by 50% in the demo and down by 38% in viewership over the last season. Also, lead actress Serinda Swan is on record as saying she doesn't want to continue with the series. But hope springs eternal...
Posted by: BV Lawson | November 01, 2022 at 10:19 AM