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
Principal photography has begun in Calgary, Canada on the dark western thriller, The Thicket, based on Joe R. Lansdale’s novel of the same name, starring and produced by Game of Thrones alum, Peter Dinklage. Set at the turn-of-the-century, The Thicket follows an innocent young man, Jack (Levon Hawke), who goes on an epic quest to rescue his sister Lula (Esmé Creed-Miles) after she has been kidnapped by the violent killer, Cut Throat Bill (Juliette Lewis), and her gang. To save her, Jack enlists the help of a crafty bounty hunter named Reginald Jones (Dinklage), a grave-digging alcoholic son of an ex-slave (Gbenga Akinnagbe), and a street-smart prostitute (Leslie Grace). The gang tracks Cut Throat Bill into the deadly no-man’s land known as The Big Thicket — a place where blood and chaos reign. Playwright Christopher Kelly will pen the adaptation, with Elliott Lester (Nightingale) directing and co-producing.
Screen Media has taken all North American rights to the crime picture, Bad Hombres, directed by John Stalberg Jr. The thriller follows the story of two immigrants who take a simple job, but when their employers reveal themselves to be criminals, surviving becomes the most difficult job of their lives. The ensemble cast includes Luke Hemsworth (Westworld), Thomas Jane (The Punisher), Nick Cassavetes (Face Off), Tyrese Gibson (The Fast and The Furious), Diego Tinoco (On My Block), Hemky Madera (Queen of the South) and Paul Johansson (One Tree Hill).
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Amazon Studios has partnered with The Tornante Company to develop The Better Liar, a drama series based on the book by the same name by Tanen Jones. Daisy Ridley is set to star in and executive produce the adaptation, written and executive produced by Raelle Tucker (True Blood). According to the logline, "When a woman hires a lookalike in an effort to conceal her sister’s death and claim their shared inheritance, her deception exposes a web of dangerous secrets." This would mark the first starring TV role for Ridley, probably best known for playing Rey in the Star Wars franchise. She has also been filming the noir thriller, Magpie, based on a story she had developed, and will next be seen in The Marsh King’s Daughter and Young Woman and the Sea.
After years of rumors and speculation, a second season of the thriller series, The Night Manager, is now in the works at Amazon Prime Video, with Tom Hiddleston returning as lead protagonist, Jonathan Pine. Both Amazon Studios and the BBC, who launched the critically acclaimed first season back in 2016, are reportedly ready to green light "a two-season order," meaning there could be a lot more from The Night Manager to come. The next adventure for Jonathan Pine will take him out of Cairo, the primary setting of the first outing, and pick up several years after the dramatic events of the first season's finale.
Following the critical acclaim of the debut season, the BBC is moving forward with a second season of The Tourist, with leads Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald set to return. Producers say the off-beat thriller will continue with the same dark comedy that had viewers hooked from the beginning. In the inaugural season, a Northern Irish man (Dornan) wakes up with amnesia in an Australian hospital and must use what few clues he has to discover his identity before his past catches up with him.
Ving Rhames is set as the lead of Legacy, a three-episode original series for BET+, playing Guy Simmons, a notorious mobster and patriarch of the Simmons family, the ruling crime family in the southern underworld. Simmons has created a legacy he wants to pass on to his two sons, Kevin and Tysean. However, his womanizing ways have spilled over and jeopardized all he’s worked for. AJ Johnson, Lisa Raye and Clifton Powell also star.
Soji Arai (Dead Ringers) has been tapped for a substantial role in the second season of HBO Max's crime drama series, Tokyo Vice. The Max Original, led by Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe, was renewed for a second season last June, after airing its first season in April. It’s loosely based on the book of the same name by journalist Jake Adelstein, a firsthand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat by American journalist Jake Adelstein (Elgort) and captures his daily descent into the neon-soaked underbelly of Tokyo in the late ’90s, where nothing and no one is truly what or who they seem. Arai will play Shingo, the lover and former colleague of Jake’s supervisor, Emi (Rinko Kikuchi). Tokyo Vice is created, executive-produced, and written by Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers
Skye P. Marshall will star opposite Kathy Bates in CBS’s drama pilot, Matlock, a new take on the classic legal TV drama starring Andy Griffith, which comes from Jane the Virgin creator, Jennie Snyder Urman, and NCIS: Los Angeles star, Eric Christian Olsen. After achieving success in her younger years, the brilliant septuagenarian Madeline Matlock (Bates) rejoins the work force at a prestigious law firm where she uses her unassuming demeanor and wily tactics to win cases and expose corruption from within. Marshall will play Olympia, a formidable attorney and a key rainmaker at New York’s most prestigious law firm.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Meet the Thriller Author welcomed bestselling author Freida McFadden, a practicing physician specializing in brain injury, who has penned multiple bestselling psychological thrillers including her latest,The Housemaid's Secret.
The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Saralyn Richard, author of the Detective Parrott Mystery series.
It Was a Dark and Storm Book Club had a conversation with Gary Edgington, author of Outside The Wire (not the science fiction film of the same name), in which a retired LA counterterrorism cop and a fearless Army doctor risk everything, including their burgeoning romance, as they battle clandestine Iranian operatives bent on the slaughter of thousands of innocents and ultimately the destruction of America.
The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke to crime writer, Andrew Taylor, who discussed Restoration England, Edgar Allen Poe in London, and the TV crime show, Ozark.
John Sayles chatted with Crime Time FM's Paul Burke about his historical novel, Jamie MacGillivray; the dialogue of Peter Cooke & Dudley Moore; British grub; and perspectives of history and historical fiction.
On the Writer's Detective Bureau, Detective Adam Richardson answered questions about a fictional FBI undercover story involving a prisoner release; pyromania; and gun types.
The latest Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast features the first chapter of Murder at the Menger by Kathleen Kaska, read by actor Ariel Linn.
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's podcast welcomed Joseph Goodrich, an Edgar Allan Poe Award-winning playwright whose productions have been shown from New York to San Francisco, to read from his short story, "Shame the Devil."
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