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
Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones) is set to join the cast of the crime drama, The Killer, and will star opposite Omar Sy in a leading role. The two are headlining the reimagining of the 1989 John Woo film, which the director is returning to helm and produce. The original film starred Chow Yun Fat and follows an assassin who takes one last assignment in order to use his earnings to pay for the surgery that will restore the sight of a singer he blinded. The screenplay was penned by writing partners Matthew Stuecken and Josh Campbell, as well as Eran Creevy and Brian Helgeland.
Tyrese Gibson (The Fast and Furious franchise) and Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs) have signed on to star in the action thriller, The Wrecker, currently shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. Filmmaker Art Camacho is directing from an original screenplay by Niko Foster, who also stars in the film. The plot follows a dishonorably discharged ex-marine named Tony, now turned car mechanic, whose life takes an unexpected turn when his reckless brother makes a bad decision gaining the unwanted attention of a notorious crime boss.
RLJE Films has acquired the psychological thriller, Sympathy for the Devil, and will distribute the film in North America, the U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, with a release date set for July 28, 2023. Starring Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman, the project tells the story of a man (Kinnaman) who is forced at gunpoint to drive a strange passenger (Cage) in a game of cat and mouse where everything is not as it seems. Yuval Adler (Bethlehem; The Operative) directed from a debut script by Luke Paradise.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Viaplay has found its Inspector Rebus for the latest adaptation based on author Sir Ian Rankin's novels. Outlander star, Richard Rankin (no relation to the author), will play the lead in the Nordic streamer’s debut UK original, titled Rebus. Richard Rankin follows in the footsteps of fellow Scottish actors John Hannah and Ken Stott, who led the ITV version 20 years ago. Viaplay’s reboot, which is planned as a returning series and will soon unveil more of the cast, follows 40-year-old Inspector John Rebus at a psychological crossroads following an altercation with an infamous Edinburgh gangster. At odds with a job increasingly driven by technocrats, involved in a toxic affair he knows he needs to end, and all but supplanted in his daughter’s life by his ex-wife’s wealthy new husband, Rebus begins to wonder if he still has a role to play – either as a family man or a police officer.
Newly minted Oscar winner Ed Berger, director, co-writer and producer of All Quiet On the Western Front, is set to direct and executive produce Helltown, currently in development at Amazon. Oscar Isaac is in discussions to lead the series. According to the logline, the hour-long, eight-episode crime thriller follows the life of Kurt Vonnegut before he became known to the world as a renowned author. Per Amazon, "In 1969 Kurt was a struggling novelist and car salesman living life with his wife and five children on Cape Cod. When two women disappear and are later discovered murdered underneath the sand dunes on the outskirts of Provincetown, Kurt becomes obsessed and embroiled in the chilling hunt for a serial killer and forms a dangerous bond with the prime suspect." Based on the book of the same name written by Casey Sherman, the series comes from Severance co-Executive Producer, Mohamad El Masri, who will also serve as showrunner and writer.
A Monk follow-up movie is coming to Peacock. The NBCUniversal streamer has ordered Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, starring Tony Shalhoub in a reprisal of his titular role from the USA series, along with original series cast members Ted Levine, Traylor Howard, Jason Gray-Stanford, Melora Hardin, and Hector Elizondo. In the follow-up movie, Monk, a brilliant San Francisco-based detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder, returns to solve one last, very personal case involving his beloved stepdaughter Molly, a journalist preparing for her wedding.
Christopher Reich’s Simon Riske book series is headed to the small screen on Netflix. Oscar-winning director Edward Berger is set to helm the international spy thriller, which is being written by Rowan Joffe (Tin Star; The Informer). Described as being in the vein of The Day of the Jackal and The Bourne Identity, the first season will be based on the first book in the series, The Take, centering on Simon Riske, a freelance industrial spy. Riske lives largely under the radar above his auto garage in London until he gets involved in the chase for a stolen letter that could upend the balance of power in the Western world, set against the backdrop of the greatest street heist in the history of Paris.
Amazon Prime Video has canceled Three Pines after just one season. Based on the novels by Louise Penny, the series starred Alfred Molina as Inspector Armond Gamache as he investigates cases beneath the idyllic surface of the Quebec village of Three Pines. The series had been left on a cliffhanger, with Gamache’s life on the line as his team tried to find him. The project also starred Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and the show had garnered praise for its nuanced portrayal of Indigenous people and issues.
CBS is getting a head start on boosting the profile of its new Justin Hartley drama, now named Tracker. Previously known as The Never Game, the series is scheduled to air during the 2023-24 broadcast season, but the network’s marketing department plans to kick off the drama’s promotional campaign this Thursday during March Madness. Tracker, based on the bestselling novel, The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver, follows a lone-wolf survivalist named Colter Shaw (Hartley), who roams the country as a "reward seeker," using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all manner of mysteries while contending with his own fractured family. Robin Weigert, Abby McEnany, Eric Graise, and Fiona Rene also star.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with three of the four crime writers who've published a novel under the name Lee Anne Post, the pen name for co-authors Cathy Baldau, Tara Bell, Ginny Fite and K.P. Robbins. They've worked as reporters and editors covering various types of topics, and they have written a highly relevant novel that entertains and raises important issues, Thoughts & Prayers.
Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Alma Katsu to discuss her book, Red London, the follow-up to Red Widow. Mildly disgraced CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan is working to rehabilitate her reputation by taking an assignment in London sussing out a potential Russian defector, until she’s loaned out to MI6 in an effort to befriend the wife of a Russian oligarch and convince her to flip on her husband. The clock is ticking though, Putin’s successor in the Kremlin might have a more permanent solution
Kate Hamer, Peter Swanson, Tove Alsterdal, and Charlotte Vassell chatted with Paul Burke for a special episode of Crime Time FM featuring the four Faber authors, who have each just published a new thriller/crime novel.
On the latest Writer's Detective Bureau, Detective Adam Richardrson answered questions about financial crimes, how a detective could go about becoming a police chief in another state, and he explained what it means to be a percipient witness.
The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with crime writer John Lincoln Williams about his new novel, punk rock [sic]; interviewing Great American Crime Writers; and his biography of pop legend, Shirley Bassey. They also talked about writers who were terrible people.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club visited with Wendy Sand Eckel about her book Mystery at Windswept Farm, the third book in the Rosalie Hart Mystery Series.
Edith Maxwell, who also writes under the name Maddie Day, is the Agatha-winning author of the Quaker Midwife Mysteries. On the latest Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine podcast, she read her story "Peril in Pasadena," which features 1920s private eyes Dorothy Henderson and Ruth Skinner in a case involving a woman astronomer.
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