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
Murder, She Wrote is apparently getting a movie adaptation from writers Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo (Dumb Money) and Amy Pascal’s Pascal Pictures for Universal (although the film is currently on hold due to the writers' and actors' strikes). The original TV series was created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson, and William Link for Universal Television and ran on CBS from 1984-1996. It starred Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, a widowed mystery writer who applies her skill writing whodunnits to solving real life homicides, and netted several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and wins.
Indie distributor Brainstorm Media has locked down North American rights to LaRoy, a darkly comedic thriller starring John Magaro (First Cow), Steve Zahn (The White Lotus) and Dylan Baker (Happiness) that premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Festival and nabbed three awards at the Deauville American Film Festival. The film is the first from writer-director Shane Atkinson and is set for release in theaters and on digital in 2024. LaRoy follows a down-and-out man who is mistaken for a hired killer, leading him to play a dangerous game with dire consequences.
In the first major acquisition at the Toronto Film Festival, Netflix picked up Woman of The Hour, the fact-based thriller that marks the directing debut of actress Anna Kendrick. The project is based on the true story of a young woman, Cheryl Bradshaw (played by Kendrick), who actually won a date on The Dating Game TV series with a man who turned out to be notorious serial killer, Rodney Alcala (played by Daniel Zovatto), later convicted of murdering at least eight women.
Neil Burger’s thriller, The Marsh King’s Daughter, is now scheduled for release November 3 instead of October 6. It's the latest project to change dates due to AMC’s Taylor Swift: Eras Concert (which opens on October 13, plays for four weekends, and is already on target to becoming the highest-grossing concert film of all time). The Marsh King's Daughter centers on Helena (Daisy Ridley), whose seemingly ordinary life hides a dark and dangerous truth: her estranged father is the infamous Marsh King (Ben Mendelsohn), the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. When her father escapes from prison, Helena will need to confront her past. Knowing that he will hunt for her and her family, Helena must find the strength to face her demons and outmaneuver the man who taught her everything she knows about surviving in the wild.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
ITV has announced a new crime drama, Out There, starring Doc Martin's Martin Clunes, who plays a farmer confronted with dark forces seeping into his rural community. ITV says the drama "will depict the stealthy, surreptitious invasion of the land our farmer cherishes, with devastating consequences, as his livelihood, homestead, and family life are threatened by local county lines drug dealers, essentially urban gangs using the British countryside as a field of operations, moving drugs and money between their inner-city hubs and provincial areas."
Amazon Studios has pushed the premiere date for Mr. and Mrs. Smith to early 2024 from its originally scheduled November window, the latest premiere date to change due to the dual Hollywood strikes. From co-creators and executive producers Donald Glover (Atlanta) and Francesca Sloane (Fargo), the series is a re-imagining of New Regency’s 2005 Doug Liman-directed action comedy film that starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The movie followed a bored married couple who are surprised to learn that they both are assassins hired by competing agencies to kill each other.
The second season of the BBC Drama, Vigil, has sold to Peacock in the U.S. and several other territories. Season 2 returns with a brand-new investigation that takes Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) and Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie) into the secret world of drone warfare to catch a killer. Following multiple deaths at a Scottish weapons test, Silva and Longacre are tasked with uncovering the cause. The show is written by The Crown scribe, Tom Edge.
Netflix has unveiled a trailer for season 3 of Lupin, the streamer’s smash French comedy-thriller. The original French series is a contemporary adaptation of the novels penned by French writer Maurice LeBlanc, who created the character in 1905. The books have been adapted into dozens of TV series and movies over the years. The Lupin trailer sees Assane (Omar Sy) in hiding, learning to live far from his wife and son. With the suffering they endure because of him, Assane can’t stand it any longer and decides to return to Paris to make them a crazy proposal: leave France and start a new life elsewhere. But the ghosts of the past are never far away, and an unexpected return will flip his plans upside down.
The trailer for HEIST 88 is here, offering a glimpse at what happens when a criminal mastermind ropes a bunch of amateurs into a multi-million-dollar bank job. Set during 1988 in Chicago, the story follows career criminal Jeremy Horne (Courtney B. Vance), who wants to pull one final job before he's sent to prison. But rather than rely exclusively on his established criminal connections, Jeremy decides to draw in some new blood for the $80 million bank heist: specifically, four young bank employees. HEIST 88 premieres Sept. 29 on SHOWTIME and Paramount+.
The first trailer for Mike Flanagan and Trevor Macy’s The Fall of the House of Usher has arrived. An adaptation of the famous Edgar Allan Poe short story, The Fall of the House of Usher follows siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher (Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell), the two ruthless forces behind the massive financial empire, Fortunato Pharmaceuticals. However, when secrets from this ruling family’s past come back to haunt them, the members of this powerful family will start to fall. The limited series is set to premiere all eight episodes on Netflix on Oct. 12.
ITV has dropped the first trailer for the upcoming financial crime thriller, Payback. With an idyllic family lifestyle in the suburbs of Edinburgh, Lexie Noble (Morven Christie) becomes entangled in a police operation to topple a notorious crime lord, Cal Morris (Peter Mullen).
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features Debbi Mack's interview with Matt Witten, who has written for television shows including House, Law & Order, Pretty Little Liars, CSI: Miami, and Homicide. He's also the author of the Jacob Burns Mysteries and has published two thrillers, one of which, The Necklace, has been optioned for adaptation to film by Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way Production Company.
On Crime Time FM, Denise Mina chatted with Craig Sisterson about her new Marlowe novel, The Second Murderer; and revisiting misogyny, racism, and feminism.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed Harry Carpenter, an author and the founder and producer of the Fright Reads Book Festival.
On the latest Red Hot Chili Writers, TV personality-turned-writer AJ West stopped by to discuss his time on Big Brother and the greatest ever ghost stories, including the one about the saucy ghost ape of Dorset.
The new installment of Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast features the first chapter of Murder Faux Paws by T.C. LoTempio, read by actor Ariel Linn.
The Pick Your Poison podcast discussed a toxin abused by teenagers that causes sudden cardiac death and how fear can kill you.
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