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
Alona Tal (SEAL Team), Jake Busey (Predators), and Craig Sheffer (A River Runs Through It) have joined Mark Feuerstein, Neal McDonough, Dermot Mulroney, and Christopher Lloyd in Man in the Long Black Coat, from director Salvador Litvak. The film tells the story of a troubled teen accused of a shocking murder, and the unlikely detective who seeks to prove his innocence and expose a far more sinister truth.
Paul Ben-Victor (Plane) and Mercedes Varnado (The Mandalorian) are the newest additions to the cast of the action-thriller, The Collective, which follows a group of righteous assassins. The members take aim at a highly sophisticated human trafficking ring backed by a network of untouchable billionaires. With their backs against the wall, The Collective has no choice but to put their most important mission in the hands of rookie assassin, Sam Alexander (Lucas Till). What he lacks in experience he makes up for in savvy, grit, and a keen ability to improvise in the most dangerous situations. He is aided on his journey by Hugo (Tyrese Gibson) and Liam (Don Johnson), former CIA operatives turned rogue vigilantes.
The first trailer was released for Marlowe, the upcoming film starring Liam Neeson as Raymond Chandler's iconic detective, which premieres on February 15. Academy Award-winning screenwriter William Monahan (The Departed) adapted the project, with Neil Jordan (The Brave One) directing. The noir crime thriller is set in late 1930’s Los Angeles and centers around a street-wise, down-on-his-luck detective, Philip Marlowe, who is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress (Diane Kruger), daughter of a well-known movie star (Jessica Lange). The disappearance unearths a web of lies, and soon Marlowe is involved in a dangerous, deadly investigation where everyone involved has something to hide.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
AMC Networks has acquired the rights to John Maxim’s Bannerman spy book series for development as a potential television series. In the first of the books, The Bannerman Solution, Paul Bannerman was once his nation’s deadliest weapon – a top covert operative heading up the most lethal group of contract agents and network specialists in all of Europe. Now Bannerman is a liability, so the agency makes the decision that Bannerman and his people must be quietly eliminated. But Bannerman has other plans.
MGM+, formerly Epix, unveiled its programming lineup and development slate. The newly rebranded streaming service will launch on January 15 in conjunction with the season three premiere of Godfather of Harlem starring and executive produced by Forest Whitaker. Among the new projects are The Emperor of Ocean Park, a suspenseful take on Stephen L. Carter’s best-selling novel that centers around the death of a Black judge, whose daughter believes was actually murdered; Hoodlum, based on the 1997 MGM film written by Chris Brancato and based on the true story of 1930s Harlem numbers queen, Stephanie St. Clair, and her rise to prominence; and the docuseries, Wonderland Murders & the Secret History of Hollywood, a project executive produced by Bosch novelist, Michael Connelly.
In a competitive situation, veteran producer Clark Peterson (Monster, Rampart) and his Story and Film, Inc, has optioned Sara Foster’s thriller novel, The Hush, for development as a television series. Set in a near-future, surveillance-state London, The Hush follows a group of women who join forces with a midwife to save her daughter, who is the latest in a string of pregnant teens that have mysteriously disappeared. In the six months since the first case of a terrifying new epidemic, the government has passed sweeping new laws to monitor all citizens, and young pregnant women are vanishing without a trace.
Independent studio, wiip, has preemptively acquired An Honest Man, an upcoming novel by Michael Koryta, to develop as a television drama series, with Koryta attached to pen the adaptation. An Honest Man tells the story of Israel Pike, a man just released from prison for killing his own father, who returns to his ancestral island home in northern Maine and quickly becomes the primary suspect when seven men, including two Senate rivals and the prosecutor who sent Pike to prison, are found dead aboard a yacht drifting offshore. Lt. Jenn Salazar of the Maine State Police takes the lead in the investigation on Salvation Point Island, operating with secrets of her own to protect.
Nicholas Logan and Jeri Ryan have joined the cast of Dark Winds, AMC’s Western noir thriller series based on Tony Hillerman’s popular Leaphorn & Chee books. Set in 1971 on a remote outpost of the Navajo Nation near Monument Valley, Dark Winds follows Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and officer Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) of the Tribal Police as they are besieged by a series of seemingly unrelated crimes. Logan plays Colton Wolf, a twisted assassin with a secret that puts him on a collision course with Leaphorn. Ryan portrays Rosemary Vines, a femme fatale whose physical frailties hide her naked ambition as she leaves a trail of bodies in her wake. Jessica Matten, Deanna Allison, and Elva Guerra also star.
As part of a press tour, actor Timothy Olyphant talked about returning to Justified amid controversy surrounding police misconduct in the U.S. Based on the books by Elmore Leonard and his character of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, Justified ended in 2015, but the crime drama is returning in the form of Justified: City Primeval, expected to premiere in summer 2023. Olyphant noted that "We’re not a show that’s a cheerleader for law enforcement" and that the storylines won’t gloss over the topic of police brutality and inequality. Set ten years after the finale of the original Justified, the new crime drama finds Givens juggling work with raising his teenage daughter Willa (Olyphant’s real-life daughter Vivian), with the action moving from Kentucky to the city of Detroit, where Givens joins the police department’s investigation into "The Oklahoma Wildman," known as Clement Mansel (Boyd Holbrook).
AMC announced that the premiere date for the second season of Dalgliesh (an Acorn TV Original) will be in April of this year. The new season is based on three more P.D. James novels, Death of an Expert Witness, A Certain Justice, and The Murder Room, with Bertie Carvel reprising his role as the enigmatic chief investigator.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Good Morning America spoke with James Patterson and Mike Lupica, authors of The House of Wolves, the story of a father’s murder and the family feud over his billion-dollar empire that follows.
The first Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode of 2023 is up featuring the mystery short story, "Owl Be Damned," written by Nikki Knight and read by actor Ariel Linn.
On Crime Time FM, Steve Cavanagh (Eddie Flynn series) and Imran Mahmood (All I Said Was True) discussed courtroom thrillers with Victoria Selman; why we all love Atticus Finch; the courtroom as a cathedral; and having a pint with Rumpole.
Comments