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
Paramount Pictures has preemptively acquired a remake of the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock-directed psychological thriller, Vertigo, with Robert Downey Jr eyeing the James Stewart lead role of the former police detective forced to retire after a line of duty trauma that leaves him with fear of heights and vertigo. After he’s shelved by his affliction, the detective is hired by an acquaintance to shadow his wife, whom he feels is behaving erratically. The script will be written by Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders. Paramount was the home for the original film, and the Hitchcock Estate favored the studio as the landing spot for the remake. The original was scripted by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor from the Boileau-Narcejac novel, D’entre les morts (From Among the Dead).
First-look images were revealed for the psychological thriller, My Sister’s Bones, adapted from Nuala Ellwood’s novel of the same name. The film opens in a bleak police station where celebrated war correspondent Kate Rafter (Jenny Seagrove) faces questions from a psychiatrist, Dr. Shaw (Olga Kurylenko), as they work through the painful events of Rafter’s life. A horrific incident in war-torn Iraq and the death of her mother have brought a haunted Rafter home to Herne Bay, a place she believed she had escaped forever. Her resentful sister (Anna Friel) has not made her sister welcome and her forbearing husband Paul (Ben Miles) fails to broker peace. Whilst packing up her mother’s belongings from her childhood home, Rafter comes to believe there is something strange and terrifying happening in the house next door.
Michael Stuhlbarg is set to join Matt Damon and Casey Affleck in The Instigators for Apple Original Films, with Doug Liman aboard to direct. The film follows two thieves who go on the run with the help of one of their therapists after a robbery goes awry. The script was penned by Chuck MacLean and Casey Affleck and developed by Robinov, Graham, and Affleck. Also in the cast are Hong Chau and Paul Walter Hauser.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
James Patterson has inked an exclusive first-look deal with Skydance Television, which is already in production on an adaptation of his Alex Cross series starring Aldis Hodge. As part of the deal, Patterson will develop a slate of series based on his top-selling book series: Women’s Murder Club, which follows a group of women from different professions who work together to solve murders, and also Michael Bennett, which follows NYPD Detective Michael Bennett as he solves crimes and raises his ten adopted children. Other projects in the pipeline will include Private, which centers on a high-end private investigation agency run by former CIA agent Jack Morgan; Jane Smith, a yet-to-be-published series that follows Jane, a brilliant defense attorney and private investigator who, on the eve of a major homicide trial, learns she has just 14 months to live; and Holmes, Miss Marple and Poe, which follows Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple and August Poe, who have formed the most in-demand private investigation firm in present-day New York City, with claims to be distantly related to three of the greatest mystery writers of all time—but who are they really?
The BBC is delving into the history of Soho’s criminal underworld for its a six-part drama series, Dope Girls, inspired by Marek Kohn’s non-fiction book Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground. The series will mix elements of the fact-based research of Kohn’s book with fictional characters and storylines, exploring all aspects of the criminal world of Soho in the early 20th Century. Deadline reported it’s partly based on the true story of conservative, god-fearing 42-year old single mother Kate Meyrick, who builds a nightclub empire and criminal family enterprise and becomes the most dangerous woman in London as well as a competitor to Brilliant Chang, the baron of Soho’s gritty underworld. Her nightclubs are fueled by drugs and alcohol that allow for a generation of World War I veterans and survivors to forget their trauma and break through the rigid patriarchal structures of the era to allow women to dance, have sex and do drugs with whomever they want.
Amazon is moving forward with its series adaptation of E. Lockhart’s novel, We Were Liars, a "tragic" love story and 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 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.
Oscar-winning Eddie Redmayne will star in The Day of the Jackal series for Peacock and Sky, playing The Jackal, a professional assassin hired by a French paramilitary dissident to kill French President Charles de Gaulle in 1962. The series is based on the Frederick Forsyth novel and 1973 film adaptation from Universal Pictures. However, it has been reimagined as a contemporary story set amidst the current turbulent geo-political landscape and will delve deeper into the chameleon like "anti-hero." Top Boy creator and writer, Ronan Bennett, will pen the script and serve as showrunner.
CBS Studios is developing The Mysterious Mortons, a detective drama series for CBS from Charmed's Amy Rardin and George Northy and Castle's Laurie Zaks. The show follows a homicide detective who enlists his quirky family of mystery writers to assist him in cracking the cases that perplex the authorities.
Emmy winner Michael Chiklis is set to star alongside Danny Pino in Hotel Cocaine, MGM+’s upcoming crime thriller series from creator Chris Brancato. Hotel Cocaine is the story of Roman Compte (Pino), a Cuban expatriate who fought against Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs invasion and re-made his life in Miami. He is general manager of the Hotel Mutiny, the glamorous epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene of late ‘70s and early ‘80s. The Hotel Mutiny was Casablanca on cocaine, a glitzy nightclub, restaurant and hotel frequented by Florida businessmen and politicians, international narcos, CIA and FBI agents, models, sports stars and musicians. Chiklis will play Agent Zulio who will stop at nothing to shut down the drug trade, even if it means using innocent civilians to accomplish his ends.
Endeavour, the PBS Masterpiece detective drama that stars Shaun Evans and Roger Allam, will return for its ninth and final season June 18. Inspired by Inspector Morse and based on the novels of Colin Dexter, the spinoff set in the ’70s will wrap with Endeavour Morse (Evans) and his superior officer Fred Thursday (Allam) facing new crimes and an unsolved case from the past. Jack Bannon will return as Sam, while other characters from former seasons are expected to appear in the finale. The ensemble cast includes Anton Lesser as CS Reginald Bright, Sean Rigby as Jim Strange, and James Bradshaw as Dr. Max DeBryn. An hourlong documentary titled Morse and The Last Endeavour is planned for June 11.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
On Book Riot's Read or Dead podcast, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed noir novels.
All About Agatha chatted with debut author Kitty Murphy about the first book in her "Dublin Drag Mysteries" series, Death in Heels.
Crime Time FM's Paul Burke spoke with Alis Hawkins about her new literary historical mystery, A Bitter Remedy; Welsh history; the Teifi Valley Coroner; the Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival; and a strange male affliction.
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