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
Following a competitive bidding war with several studios and streamers involved, Amazon Studios has landed the film, Red Shirt, to star Channing Tatum. Based on an original pitch by Simon Kinberg (who also produced Sherlock Holmes, among others), the project will also see David Leitch on board to direct. Plot details are being kept under wraps other than the story being described as "an international spy thriller" and a "new spin on James Bond" with the potential to become a franchise.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) will star in and executive produce the upcoming Miramax TV limited series, The Christie Affair, based on Nina de Gramont’s best-selling novel. The story centers around Agatha Christie’s real-life eleven-day disappearance In 1926 when her husband’s affair became public. In this reimagining, told through the eyes of her husband’s mistress, Nan O’Dea (Ridley), Nan and Agatha become entwined in each other’s lives in ways neither expected.
Bestselling author David Baldacci’s Atlee Pine books are headed to television via Amazon Studios, which is developing an untitled drama series based on the novels. The project follows exceptional FBI agent, Atlee Pine, as she finds herself at a crossroads in her life and career and she has to go back and solve the one case that has shaped her entire existence — the disappearance of her twin sister thirty years ago. If the project moves forward, it will mark the second series based on Baldacci books following TNT’s King and Maxwell, which was an adaptation of the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell book series.
A series adaptation of E. Lockhart’s YA suspense thriller, We Were Liars, has also landed at Amazon for development. Julie Plec and Carina Adly MacKenzie (Roswell, New Mexico co-creator) are adapting the book. We Were Liars is an amnesia thriller set on a privately owned island off the coast of Massachusetts. Focusing on the theme of consequences of one’s mistakes, the series follows the wealthy, seemingly perfect Sinclair family, who spend every summer sitting gathered on their private island. However, not every year is the same: When something happens to Cadence Sinclair during the summer of her 15th year, she and the other three "liars" — Johnny, Gat and Mirren — re-emerge two years later to prompt Cadence to remember the incident.
The very-busy Amazon Studios strikes again with Scarlett Johansson's first major foray into television as she gets set to star in and executive produce Just Cause, a thriller limited series based on John Katzenbach’s 1992 novel. In the straight-to-series TV adaptation, the book’s male protagonist, Miami newspaper editorial writer, Matt Cowart, is undergoing a gender swap, with Johansson playing the series’ female lead Madison "Madi" Cowart, a struggling reporter for a Florida newspaper sent to cover the final days of an inmate on death row. Johannson, a two-time Oscar nominee and a Tony winner, has a personal connection to the title: at age 10, she appeared in Warner Bros.’ 1995 feature adaptation of Katzenbach’s book in only her second film role, playing the daughter of the main character (portrayed by Sean Connery).
Robert De Niro has signed on to star in the new Netflix limited political thriller series, Zero Day. The project comes from the team behind Narcos (executive producer, writer, and showrunner Eric Newman, and Noah Oppenheim, the president of NBC News and Jackie screenwriter). There are currently no exact details on the limited series’ plot, although the show is set to center around political themes, with De Niro playing a former U.S. president.
Paramount’s UK network Channel 5 has unveiled a four-part thriller, Black Cab, with Robert Glenister (Sherwood), Suzanne Packer (In My Skin), and Sean Pertwee (Gotham) starring. Black Cab will follow Glenister as a down-and-out Liverpool taxi driver, who begins to form an unhealthy obsession with a late-night radio talk show host (Pertwee). Nick Saltrese (A Prayer Before Dawn) has penned the series and Diarmuid Goggins (Bulletproof) is directing.
African streamer, Showmax, is producing Crime and Justice Lagos, which follows the activities of the fictional Serious and Special Crimes Unit working in the Nigerian capital, led by Deputy Commissioner of Police Femi Biboye (William Benson). The show will debut on December 8, with Folu Storms and Jammal Ibraham also starring as the heads of an elite team of detectives.
Ryan Eggold (New Amsterdam) and Isaiah Mustafa (It: Chapter 2) will star opposite Aldis Hodge in Amazon’s Alex Cross series, Cross, in series regular roles. Eggold will play Ed Ramsey, who is initially a fan of Cross (Hodge) but soon becomes a formidable adversary. Mustafa will play John Sampson, Alex’s partner on the force and best friend of 30 years. Cross is created by producer and writer Ben Watkins and based on the best-selling book series by James Patterson. The title character of Alex Cross is 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.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Louise Penny was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning about her new Inspector Gamache novel, A World of Curiosities and how a painting and forgiveness inspired the 18th novel in the Gamache series.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring an excerpt from the first chapter of Lost and Found in Harlem by Delia C. Pitts, as read by actor Theodore Fox.
The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast featured a 1950s holiday story told by Hollis Seamon, a frequent contributor to EQMM whose story, "Black Swallowtail," finished in third place for 2021's EQMM Reader's Award. "Book Lovers" is a story that is sure to entertain mystery fans and lovers of classic literature alike.
Crime Time FM welcomed Vaseem Khan (The Lost Man of Bombay) and Janice Hallett (The Twyford Code) to discuss cozy crime; warmth and humor in the murder mystery; how every novel needs an elephant, and more.
Spybrary spoke with the former UK Home Secretary and best-selling author, Alan Johnson, about how his background as Home Secretary helped him to write his fiction books Late Train to Gipsy Hill and One of Our Ministers is Missing.
All About Agatha featured a discussion of Parker Pyne, a detective featured in a series of short stories by Agatha Christie.
On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed true crime for a (belated) Nonfiction November.
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