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
Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Ben Kingsley are set to star in The Thursday Murder Club, with Chris Columbus attached to write and direct. The film is an adaptation of British TV host and producer Richard Osman's novel of the same name from Steven Spielberg‘s production house, Amblin Entertainment. The story follows a group of geriatric friends in a retirement home who gather to solve murders for fun, but find themselves caught in a real case. Mirren will play ex-spy Elizabeth, Kingsley will play ex-psychiatrist Ibrahim, and Brosnan will play former union activist Ron. Negotiations for an actress to play the fourth member of the group, Joyce, are ongoing.
Pierce Brosnan has also signed to star in the romantic thriller, In The Wind, from Uri Singer’s Passage Pictures. The production is the feature directorial debut of Simon Barry, whose previous credits include creator and showrunner on the Netflix fantasy show Warrior Nun as well as Syfy show Ghost Wars. The film (fka A Spy’s Guide To Survival) centers around a reclusive, retired spy who is brought out of hiding by his enigmatic new neighbor, digging up both of their secrets in the process.
Clue is set to get another remake after Sony Pictures landed the TV and film rights to the board game that was turned into the iconic 1985 movie. Starring Tim Curry as Wadsworth the butler, the film centered around a group of strangers invited to a secluded mansion where things go wrong and also featured Eileen Brennan as Mrs. Peacock, Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White, Christopher Lloyd as Professor Plum, Michael McKean as Mr. Green, Martin Mull as Colonel Mustard, Lesley Ann Warren as Miss Scarlet, Colleen Camp as French maid Yvette, and Lee Ving as Mr. Boddy. Produced by Debra Hill, it infamously featured a number of different endings. Other potential film and TV adaptations have come and gone in the years since, but none has yet seen the light of day.
Emmy nominee Adam Scott (Severance) is set to star in and direct his first feature, Double Booked, alongside Oscar nominee Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), and Alexandra Daddario (The White Lotus). The story follows a successful self-help writer (Scott) and his heavily pregnant wife (Beetz) who organize a weekend away at a secluded lodge, only to encounter another couple (Brown and Daddario) at their cabin when they arrive. With a blizzard moving in they are forced to spend the night together, and what seems like an innocent system error turns into a chilling battle of deceit with deadly consequences.
A trailer was released for Zoë Kravitz's directorial debut, Blink Twice, a thriller about a waitress (Naomi Acke) being invited to the private island of tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), which is a far more sinister trip than it first appears. Christian Slater, Adria Arjona, and Kyle MacLachlan also star. Blink Twice is in theaters from August 23.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
Adler Entertainment Trust (AET), the production company dedicated to adapting the works of Warren Adler, is partnering with Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Todd Lieberman (The Fighter) and his production company, Hidden Pictures, on an initial two-project production deal: an untitled Fiona Fitzgerald Detective Series, based on Adler's eight-book Fiona Fitzgerald Mystery books set in the streets of Washington DC and its political backrooms, where Fiona Fitzgerald, born into an illustrious family of DC insiders, abandoned her obvious path in favor of becoming a full-time detective within the DC Metro PD; and Trans Siberian Express, an epic cold-war thriller based on Adler’s best-selling book by the same name, which follows an American cancer specialist secretly sent to Moscow to save the Soviet Politburo Chief, where he overhears a sinister plan to nuke China.
ITV's longest-running drama series, Vera, is coming to an end after 14 seasons. Based on the crime novels by Ann Cleeves, the drama stars Brenda Blethyn as the retired detective who plods along in a disheveled state but has a calculating mind, and, despite her irascible personality, cares deeply about her work and colleagues. Blethyn won the Rose d’Or Lifetime Achievement Award for her portrayal of the detective in 2021.
Deadline reported that CBS has picked up a fifth season of The Equalizer, starring and executive produced by Queen Latifah, for 2024-25. But fans of another CBS crime drama series, NCIS: Hawai’i, aren't so lucky, as the network canceled the franchise’s first female-led (Vanessa Lachey) series after three seasons. It will also be the first series in the franchise not to get a proper sendoff after a brief run, compared to its predecessors.
NBC's Law & Order: Organized Crime, is finalizing a deal for a 10-episode Season 5 renewal, relocating from NBC to sibling Peacock, with the new season streaming exclusively on the platform. The move gives the NBCUniversal streamer an original Dick Wolf drama series to go with the Wolf library and next-day runs of the company’s remaining NBC series Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU, which are among the platform’s most viewed titles. Organized Crime follows SVU's Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) in his return to the NYPD to work on the Organized Crime Task Force.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with journalist, broadcaster, and crime writer, Stig Abell, about his new novel, Death in a Lonely Place; working at the Press Complaints Commission; and the phenomenon of bits falling off satellites and back to Earth.
On Crime Time FM, author David Hewson chatted with Paul Burke about Baptiste: The Blade Must Fall; Venice; Shakespeare; Audible; writing the official prequel to a hit television show, and more.
Read or Dead's Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed mysteries and thrillers nominated for the 2024 Edgar Awards.