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
As expected, the end of the actors' and writers' strikes is creating a flood of announcements about new projects and the resumption of ones that were stalled. Amateur, the 20th Century terrorism thriller starring Rami Malek, will be among the first studio shoots to resume filming in London next month. Amateur, which also stars Rachel Brosnahan and Laurence Fishburne, was halfway through production when the feature’s hundreds of cast, crew, and contractors were put on hiatus in July. Amateur is directed by James Hawes (whose debut feature was the critically acclaimed Anthony Hopkins vehicle One Life) and follows a CIA cryptographer who, after his wife is tragically killed in a London terrorist attack, demands his bosses go after them. When it becomes clear they won’t act due to conflicting internal priorities, he blackmails the agency into training him and letting him go after them himself. Based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Robert Littell, it was adapted by Ken Nolan.
The end of the strikes has also shifted the movie and TV release schedule quite a bit. Universal Pictures is pushing back the release of The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, originally set to premiere on March 1, 2024, which will now move to May 3, 2024. The Fall Guy revolves around Gosling’s Colt Seavers, a battle-scarred stuntman who, having left the business a year earlier to focus on both his physical and mental health, is drafted back into service when the star of a mega-budget studio movie—being directed by his ex, Jody Moreno (Blunt), goes missing. Also starring in the film are Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Winston Duke, and Stephanie Tsu. The film is inspired by the 1980s ABC series created by Glen A. Larson that starred Lee Majors as Colt Seavers.
Rosamund Pike (Saltburn) and Matthew Rhys (Perry Mason) have entered production overseas on Hallow Road, a new psychological thriller, which Babak Anvari (Under the Shadows) is directing from a script by William Gillies. Commissioned and developed by London Film & TV, the film follows two parents who enter a race against time when they receive a distressing late-night phone call from their daughter after she caused a tragic car accident.
The first trailer has been released for Fast Charlie, which features Pierce Brosnan as a violent fixer attempting to identify a headless victim in order to prove he completed a hit job. The action thriller also stars Morena Baccarin, and, in his final performance, the late James Caan.
A trailer was released for Role Play, a comedic action spy thriller starring Kaley Cuoco and David Oyelowo, which will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on January 12, 2024. Cuoco plays the role of Emma, a woman who is seemingly living the perfect life alongside her loving husband and two kids in the suburbs of New Jersey. When the couple decides to spice up their love life by doing a little role-playing, things go haywire when her husband David finds out his wife leads a secret life as an assassin for hire. Thomas Vincent directed the film written by Seth Owen. Bill Nighy and Connie Nielsen also star in the film which was mainly shot in Berlin, Germany.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
The Bosch universe is expanding, with Prime Video giving a 10-episode series order to an untitled Renée Ballard project, a Bosch spinoff about the LAPD’s Cold Case Division. The newly greenlighted series is one of two projects in the works at Amazon MGM Studios inspired by the novels of bestselling author Michael Connelly. The other, the Untitled J. Edgar project, remains in development, and follows Harry Bosch’s former partner, Detective Jerry Edgar, who is tapped for an undercover FBI mission in Little Haiti, Miami. The Renée Ballard project is centered on Detective Ballard, who is tasked with running the LAPD’s new cold case division—a poorly funded, all-volunteer unit with the largest case load in the city. When she uncovers a larger conspiracy during her investigations, she’ll lean on the assistance of her retired ally, Harry Bosch, to navigate the dangers that threaten both her unit and her life.
Gato Grande, an Amazon MGM Studios company, has optioned the rights to Ana Reyes’ bestselling novel, The House in the Pines, for television development. The psychological thriller revolves around a woman, armed with only hazy memories from witnessing her friend’s sudden death years ago, who sets out to track down answers even though she's spent her lifetime trying to forget. The House in the Pines was on the New York Times Bestseller list for over two months, and was a pick for Reese’s Book Club when it was published in January 2023.
Mad Men alum Jon Hamm and producer Shawn Ryan (S.W.A.T., The Night Agent) are teaming on a live-action television series adaptation of the podcast American Hostage, with Hamm set to reprise his role from the audio series. American Hostage is described as a "psychological thriller that tells the harrowing true story of Fred Heckman, a beloved Indianapolis radio reporter who is thrust into the middle of a life-or-death crisis when hostage-taker, Tony Kiritsis, demands to be interviewed on his popular radio news program." Ryan envisions the series as an anthology, which will focus on a different hostage case each season.
Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) and Eliza Scanlen (Sharp Objects) have landed the lead roles in the BBC's upcoming crime drama, Dope Girls. Umi Myers, Eilidh Fisher, and Geraldine James have also landed major parts in the series. Dope Girls has been described as "a spiritual successor to Peaky Blinders," and is set in London’s Soho in the early 20th century when female gangs ran the clubs, drugs, and moonshine. Nicholson will play Kate Galloway, a single mother who establishes a nightclub amidst the hedonistic uproar of post-World War I London, embracing a life of criminal activities with the dedicated aim of providing for her daughter. Scanlen will play Violet Davies, one of the first wave of female officers for the Metropolitan Police, who is assigned to go undercover and investigate the illicit world of underground Soho nightclubs.
CBS has announced its winter schedule for the end of 2023 and start of 2024 with some variations from its previously announced lineup. Premiere week will start right after the Super Bowl, with new episodes of NCIS; NCIS: Hawai’i; FBI; FBI: International; FBI: Most Wanted; S.W.A.T.; Blue Bloods; The Equalizer; and CSI: Vegas. The new action-adventure drama, Tracker, starring Justin Hartley, will still air following the Super Bowl on February 11. CBS will air another new program, Elsbeth (a spinoff of The Good Fight) starring Carrie Preston, on February 29. However, another new CBS show, Matlock, originally scheduled to premiere during the 2023-2024 fall season, has been pushed back to the 2024-2025 season
ABC also revealed its midseason lineup, with crime dramas Will Trent and The Rookie returning with new seasons on Feb. 20 at 8-10 p.m. ET, while 9-1-1 and Station 19 premiere March 14 beginning at 8 p.m. The previously announced new series, High Potential, will debut during the 2024-2025 broadcast season.
Law & Order star Jeffrey Donovan, who starred as Det. Frank Cosgrove, will not be returning to the NBC procedural for its 23rd season. According to TVLine, who first reported the news, the former Burn Notice star exited the show due to creative reasons. The main cast, including Sam Waterston as DA Jack McCoy, Hugh Dancy as senior prosecutorial assistant Nathan Price, and Camryn Manheim as Lt. Kate Dixon are expected to return.
Prime Video has set a revised winter release date for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, its re-imagining of the 2005 action comedy film that starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. All eight episodes will drop on February 2, 2024, exclusively on Prime Video. In this version, two lonely strangers (Donald Glover and Maya Erskine) land jobs working for a mysterious spy agency that offers them a glorious life of espionage, wealth, world travels, and a dream brownstone in Manhattan. The catch? New identities in an arranged marriage as Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Smith. Now hitched, John and Jane navigate a high-risk mission every week while also facing a new relationship milestone. Their complex cover story becomes even more complicated when they catch real feelings for each other. What’s riskier: espionage or marriage?
Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones) and BAFTA winner Francesca Annis (Flesh & Blood) are among the stars boarding season 2 of Ben Richards’s BBC legal drama, Showtrial. The pair are joining the previously announced Adeel Akhtar, Nathalie Armin, and Michael Socha in the five-part season from Line of Duty maker World Productions. Dempsie will play DI Miles Southgate, while Annis will play a character called Dame Harriet Kenny. Other high profile cast members include Nina Toussaint-White (Bodyguard) and Fisayo Akinade (Heartstopper).
A new trailer dropped for the six-part television series, Monsieur Spade, set in the South of France in 1963 in which Dashiell Hammett’s dashing private investigator, Sam Spade (played by Clive Owen), is forced out of a quiet retirement and is back on the case to solve murders. Monsieur Spade will premiere on AMC and AMC+ on January 14.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Tim Shipman, the chief political commentator at the Sunday Times, interviewed author David McCloskey on the Spybrary podcast. The interview delves into the complexities of modern espionage, as well as themes of betrayal, love, loyalty, and vengeance in the clandestine war between the West and Moscow.
The new episode of the Crime Cafe features Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Kathleen Kaska and how she got the inspiration to write the Sydney Lockhart mysteries, a series set in the 1950s featuring a young woman trying to make it as a private detective in a man's world
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club chatted with Lee Goldberg about his book, Malibu Burning, the first in his new series featuring arson investigators Walter Sharpe and Andrew Walker.
The Crime Time FM podcast featured the Christmas Debate in which eight top critics and writers picked their best reads of the year.
Read or Dead's Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed books perfect for holiday gifting.
The Pick Your Poison podcast delved into such topics as a risky behavior that often targets pregnant women and children; a type of drug that requires surgical intervention after an overdose; and what exactly is a drug loo and where can you find one?
Comments