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
After a bidding war, 20th Studios has bought the Kevin McMullin short story, "BOMB," an action thriller with franchise potential, and brought Ridley Scott on board to direct. The short story is a template for an action thriller in the vein of Dog Day Afternoon and Speed. Frankie Ippolito is a hostage negotiator called into duty the night before his wedding in London. A man who has parked himself in a construction site in Piccadilly Circus is standing on a newly uncovered, unexploded bomb from WWII. He tells local law enforcement he will only speak with Frankie, and this sets off a chain of events in which Frankie is drawn into an overnight struggle to stop the bomber with whom he has a past.
Netflix has acquired an untitled Ryan Reynolds-led heist dramedy that was the focus of yet another bidding frenzy. The project uses an international setting and is said to have "great parts for an ensemble in the spirit of an Oceans Eleven." Shawn Levy will helm the film, with Dana Fox (Lost City) set to write the script.
Filming has begun in London on the action thriller, Bad Day At The Office, starring John Hannah (The Mummy), Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill), and Tamer Hassan (Layer Cake). The film opens with Karl Davis (Hannah) waking in a wrecked hotel room with no memory of what’s happened, where he is, or even who he is. When he discovers a dead body in the bathtub, and two police officers soon knock at his door, it sets into motion a terrifying and explosive series of events that force Karl and hotel maid Molly on a blind descent into a deceptive world of confusion and conspiracy and at the same time with a price on his head and half the city in murderous pursuit. Karl will need to draw on his forgotten skill sets if he has any hope of survival as he and Molly endeavor to unravel the mystery that took his memories.
Production has also launched in New Jersey on One Stupid Thing, a suspense/drama directed by Linda Yellen, and written by Yellen and Michael Leeds. The film stars Corey Fogelmanis, Jack Wright, Sky Katz, Shelby Simmons, and Alfredo Narciso. Three high school friends (Wright, Fogelmanis, and Simmons) share a deeply bonded friendship, until one winter night on a Nantucket rooftop, a harmless game takes a fatal turn, and the course of their lives changes forever. For nearly a year, they keep what they did a secret until the following winter break when they meet a girl (Katz) with her own dark past who helps them uncover what really happened that night – and who is behind it.
Shelley Hennig (Teen Wolf), Shiloh Fernandez (Evil Dead), and Tyrese Gibson (Fast & the Furious) are leading the thriller, Fluxx, which has recently wrapped filming in the U.S. The psychological thriller charts the story of a Hollywood actress who is intent on finding her famous missing husband, despite the fact that she cannot willingly leave her Malibu home. Co-written by Keyaunte Mayfield and Brendan Gabriel Murphy, the film's cast also includes Henry Ian Cusick (Lost), Charlotte McKinney (Baywatch), Jeff Perkins (Echo Boomers), Lance Paul (Never and Again), Michael A. Milligan (Outer Banks) and Tanner Beard (We Summon the Darkness).
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
Netflix has confirmed it picked up a new adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith classic character, Tom Ripley, from Academy Award–winning screenwriter-filmmaker Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List, The Irishman). The streaming service also released some first-look imagery, featuring Sherlock actor Andrew Scott in the lead role. The eight-episode series, which is called Ripley, also stars Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning. It doesn't currently have a release date but Netflix says it will stream in 2024.
Alexander Skarsgård will star and executive produce a new ten-episode TV adaptation of the sci-fi crime series, Murderbot, for Apple TV+ from creators and directors Chris and Paul Weitz. Based on Martha Wells’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning book series, "The Murderbot Diaries," the TV series will center on a self-hacking security android who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable "clients." The official logline is as follows: "Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe."
Mad Men star, Jon Hamm, will lead the Apple TV+ drama series, Your Friends and Neighbors. Hamm stars as Coop, a recently divorced hedge fund manager who, after being fired, resorts to stealing from the wealthy residents in his tony upstate New York suburb in order to keep his family’s lifestyle afloat. These petty crimes begin to reinvigorate him until he breaks into the wrong house at the wrong time. Warrior creator Jonathan Tropper developed the series and will serve as showrunner.
CBS is looking to turn another successful drama into a franchise by introducing a new character in an episode from Fire Country's upcoming second season. Casting is currently underway for the role, a female sheriff, which is an episodic guest star with an option to become a series regular. Sources caution that this is not a formal backdoor pilot order, and CBS could go different routes with the new character if the episode is well received, spinning off the character into her own series or adding the actress to the cast of the Fire Country mothership.
Peacock has ordered Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist starring Kevin Hart as a limited drama series. The story is based on the infamous armed robbery that happened the night of Muhammad Ali’s historic 1970 comeback fight. Set in Atlanta, the series follows the heavyweight fight and criminal underground heist that introduced the world to the city dubbed "the Black Mecca” and the cop and the hustler at the center of it all.
Fox has picked up the psychological crime drama, Murder in a Small Town, starring Rossif Sutherland (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), for the 2024-25 season. Based on the Edgar Award-winning, nine-book "Karl Alberg" series by the late Canadian author L.R. Wright, Murder in a Small Town follows the title character (Sutherland), who moves to a quiet coastal town to soothe a psyche that has been battered by big-city police work. But this gentle paradise has more than its share of secrets, and Karl will need to call upon all the skills that made him a world-class detective in solving the murders that, even in this seemingly idyllic setting, continue to wash up on his shore. Kreuk stars as Cassandra, a local librarian who becomes Alberg’s muse, foil, and romantic interest.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The latest episode of the Crime Cafe featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer, S.J. Rozan, author of the Bill Smith and Lydia Chin Mysteries and recipient of the Edgar, Anthony, Shamus, Nero, and Macavity Awards as well as the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.
The Axe Files podcast host, David Axelrod, spoke with author Sara Paretsky who said it was her summer in Chicago volunteering during the civil rights movement in 1966 that marked the "defining experience" on her life. Sara joined David to talk about her family history, the recent rise in antisemitism, using her writing to give voice to the marginalized, the creation of V.I. Warshawski, and Sara’s work on abortion and women’s rights.
Criminal Mischief with Dr. D.P. Lyle discussed "Humor in Crime Fiction."
Terry Hayes chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about The Year of the Locust; off-Earth mining; epic adventure tales; the limits in fiction; screenwriting; and whether there'll be a Pilgrim II.
Read or Dead hosts Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed their favorite books of 2023.
The Pick Your Poison podcast discussed a substance called the disease of kings, the toxic plant used to treat it, and the prehistoric animal that also suffered from this disease.
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