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
In his first star role since his Oscar-nominated turn as Elvis Presley, Austin Butler will lead the cast of City on Fire, an adaptation of Don Winslow’s novel, from Sony 3000 Pictures. Winslow's story takes elements of The Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid and Greek tragic dramas and places them in a world of contemporary crime, focusing on two criminal empires—one Irish, the other Italian—that control all of New England until a modern-day Helen of Troy event tears them apart and starts a brutal war.
Writer and director Michael Mann's Heat 2 is nearing development with Adam Driver set to star. The original 1995 crime film followed the conflict between an LAPD detective (played by Al Pacino) and a career criminal (played by Robert De Niro) while also depicting its effect on their professional relationships and personal lives. The new project will be an adaptation of Mann's original follow-up novel, Heat 2, which tells both a prequel and sequel story. Written with co-author Meg Gardiner, the book hit the market last August and quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Driver is set to play a younger version of Neil McCauley (De Niro's role) in the movie.
Joseph Baena will star alongside Luke Hemsworth and Morgan Freeman in the action film, Gunner, directed by Dimitri Logothetis (Jiu Jitsu), which is now in production in Alabama. The film follows Special Forces veteran, Lee Gunner (Hemsworth), as he takes his two boys on a camping trip, where the boys stumble upon a fentanyl lab and are kidnapped by drug runners. Unfortunately for the drug runners, Lee will stop at nothing to get his boys back safely, going up against not only the criminal cartel, but the FBI and local police as well, using the full force of his deadly abilities to reunite his family. Baena will portray Wally, a young, wet-behind-the-ears Deputy Sheriff. It was also announced that Grant Feely, Connor DeWolfe, and Mykel Shannon Jenkins have joined the cast.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Robert De Niro is attached to star in a crime drama series penned by Billy Ray (Captain Phillips; Hunger Games). The two-time Oscar winner will lead Bobby Meritorious, an original series that comes from Paramount Television Studios, with Preet Bharara, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York between 2009 and 2017, as one of the exec producers. As part of the deal, the company has also optioned Bharara’s book, Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law. The series is set amid the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is a sovereign kingdom with seemingly unlimited power and scope. But now an informant in SDNY’s biggest case, Avery "The Sage" Accomando (De Niro), is poised to tear this storied institution apart. Only one man can stop him, a fabled ex-cop-turned-prosecutor affectionately known as Bobby Meritorious.
Netflix has officially ordered Tall Pines, an eight-episode limited series from Mae Martin, Ryan Scott, and Ben Farrell and his Objective Fiction and Sphere Media. Martin serves as creator, co-showrunner and executive producer, and also will play a lead role in the series. Tall Pines is a thriller set in a bucolic but sinister town that explores the insidious underbelly of the "troubled teen industry" and the eternal struggle between one generation and the next.
MGM+ continues to round out the lead cast for Hotel Cocaine, adding Mark Feuerstein as a series regular opposite Danny Pino. In addition to Pino, Feuerstein joins previously announced Michael Chiklis and Yul Vazquez in the streamer’s upcoming crime thriller 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 Mutiny Hotel, the glamorous epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene of late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Feuerstein will play Burton Greenberg, the owner of the hotel, the "Studio 54" of Miami.
This Is Us alums, Sterling K. Brown and Dan Fogelman, are reuniting for a drama that has been ordered to series at Hulu. Although Hulu is not commenting on exact plot details of the untitled series, Variety reported that the show is a thriller and Brown would star as the head of security for a former president.
Thad Luckinbill has been tapped for a recurring role opposite Zoe Saldaña in Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ original series, Lioness, headlined and executive produced by Saldaña and also starring Nicole Kidman and Laysla De Oliveira. Lioness is based on a real-life CIA program and follows Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira), a rough-around-the-edges but passionate young Marine recruited to join the CIA’s Lioness Engagement Team to help bring down a terrorist organization from within. Saldaña will play Joe, the station chief of the Lioness program tasked with training, managing, and leading her female undercover operatives. Thad will play Kyle, an old friend of Joe’s who oversees a trafficking contact.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
NPR's All Things Considered spoke with author Leta McCollough Seletzky about the father-daughter memoir, The Kneeling Man, highlighting the complex life of her father's role as a Black spy.
On the latest episode of Two Crime Writers and a Microphone, Luca Veste spoke with SJI (Susi) Holliday about her early years in a small town outside of Edinburgh; her life as the daughter of a newsagent, reading novels taken from the shelves of that shop; and going to university—studying science rather than English—then moving to Dublin and London before finding her calling as a writer of dark psychological thrillers.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club continued with part two of their series interviewing this year's Agatha Award Nominees, including Fleur Bradley, nominated for Best Children or Young Adult Novel for her book Daybreak on Raven Island, and Korina Moss, nominated for Best First Novel for her Cheddar Off Dead.
The latest Mystery Rats Maze Podcast featured the mystery short story, "Easter Spam" (Shotgun Honey, April 2022) by John Weagly, read by actor Sean Hopper.
Read or Dead continued with awards-themed podcasts as Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed novels nominated for the Edgar Awards.
Crime Time FM host, Paul Burke, featured a review of the latest crime titles for March and early April 2023.
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine's podcast featured Mary Angela Honerman reading her story, "Five Bullet Friday," which centers around the murder of Lucy Bell, an overachieving travel agency manager whose co-workers all have secrets that could drive them to kill. But did any of them do it, or did Lucy have some secrets of her own?
THEATRE
Perry Street Theatricals has announced plans for a new musical, To Catch a Thief, which hopes to arrive on the London or New York stage sometime in the 2026-27 season. The new musical will be composed by Kevin Purcell (Rebecca: The Musical and The Stranger of Seville), with a book and lyrics by Peter Sham (Lend Me A Tenor: The Musical and Sherlock Holmes and the Great Royal Goose Chase!). To Catch a Thief is David Dodge's most famous novel, adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into an Academy Award-winning film starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Set on the French Riviera, the story centers on John Robie, an American expatriate and skilled gymnast, who once upon a time was "Le Chat," the famous and elusive cat burglar who worked the South of France. Following the war, Robie retires to a quiet life in France and vows to leave his past behind. His retirement is shattered when a copycat burglar commits a string of robberies that puts the police on Le Chat's trail again, and Robie must catch the phony Le Chat before the police catch Robie.
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