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
Duke Nicholson (Us), William H. Macy (Fargo), Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Stephen Dorff (Blade), Jake Weary (Oh, Canada) and Julia Fox (Uncut Gems) are set to star in the action-thriller, The Deputy. The film is directed by Matt Sukkar in his feature directorial debut and written by Narcos co-creator and co-writer, Carlo Bernard, based on the eponymous novel by Victor Gischler. The official synopsis reads: "Part-time Deputy Toby Sawyer (Nicholson) is jolted awake by Chief Krueger (Macy) and assigned to guard a dead body until the coroner arrives. When the corpse mysteriously vanishes, Toby launches a frantic search and unwittingly discovers decades of wrongdoing…and several cops who have turned a blind eye, including Deputy Billy Banks (Dorff) who pressures Toby to ignore his findings. Only Deputy Amanda Jackson (Haddish) appears trustworthy. Desperate to keep his job, Toby must unravel the town’s deep web of corruption before he and his career end up as dead as the missing cadaver."
Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill) and Chris Carmack (Grey’s Anatomy) will star in The Stranger in My Home, an adaptation of the novel from bestselling UK author Adele Parks. Directed by Jeff Fisher (The Image of You), the film follows Ali (Bush), her husband Jeff (Chris Johnson), and their brilliant, vivacious teenage daughter, Katie (Amiah Miller) — the absolute center of Ali’s world. When Tom Truby (Carmack) knocks at their door, life as they know it ends. Fifteen years ago, someone switched Ali and Tom’s babies at the hospital, and now Ali is facing the unthinkable: the daughter she brought home doesn’t belong to her.
Katie Holmes (Woman In Gold), Toby Kebbell (War For The Planet Of The Apes), and Oscar winner Al Pacino (The Irishman) have joined the thriller Captivated, inspired by a real-life 1973 kidnapping. The film focuses on Calabrian mafia boss Saro (Kebbell, and in present day, Pacino) who kidnaps the grandson of one of the world’s richest men, Jean Paul Getty, and endangers his entire organization when he falls in love with his victim’s mother (Holmes) during the fraught ransom negotiations. Producer Michael Mammoliti is the nephew of Saro Mammoliti, one of the main kidnappers, and has been working on a project about the events for several years.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
A third season of Acorn TV and Channel 5 detective drama, Dalgliesh, based on the novels by P.D. James, has begun filming in Northern Ireland and will see lead actor Bertie Carvel making his directorial debut. Another three P.D. James novels will be adapted for the season over two hour-long episodes each, in which Commander Dalgliesh is seen with Margaret Thatcher on the cusp of power in the UK. In the first book, Death in Holy Orders, Dalgliesh travels to a remote seminary overlooking a windswept lake, where a body has been found gruesomely murdered. Nearly everyone in the seminary has reason to resent the victim, and Dalgliesh and DS Tarrant must unpick a complicated set of motives to find their killer.
Amazon MGM Studios unveiled plans for a Road House sequel, bringing back Jake Gyllenhaal as Dalton, a man hired to be the bouncer of a bar in the Florida Keys, and also a Tomb Raider TV adaptation starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a globe-hopping archaeologist searching for lost artifacts while navigating around dangerous ruins and enemies. They join the previously renewed action series of Reacher starring Alan Ritchson, which is based on the Lee Child thrillers, and Cross, starring Aldis Hodge, an adaptation of the James Patterson crime novels. Amazon/MGM also handed a series order to Noir, a live-action series based on the Marvel comic Spider-Man Noir, with Oscar winner Nicolas Cage set to star.
Sarah Drew (Grey’s Anatomy) will star as Emily Lane in Hallmark Media's Mistletoe Murders, which is based on the Audible global hit podcast of the same name. When Emily isn’t busy running her charming small-town Christmas-themed store, Under the Mistletoe, she finds herself compelled to investigate local murders with the help of a handsome local police detective and his teen daughter. On the surface, Emily is a perfectly lovely, good-natured mystery lover – but she is hiding a secret past that, if exposed, threatens to destroy the new life she has built in Fletcher’s Grove.
Only Murders in the Building season 4 received its premiere date of August 27 on Hulu. The streamer is calling it the show's "starriest season yet," with leads Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez joined by Melissa McCarthy, Meryl Streep, Jane Lynch, Michael Cyril Creighton, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, Zach Galifianakis, Molly Shannon, Kumail Nanjiani, and Richard Kind.
ABC was one of the last networks to announce its Fall 2024 schedule, which includes the new drama, High Potential, a crime procedural starring Kaitlin Olson as a single mom with an exceptional mind, whose unconventional knack for solving crimes leads to an unusual partnership with a by-the-book seasoned detective. However, the network is waiting to drop new episodes until mid-season of Will Trent, starring Ramón Rodríguez, which is based on the crime novels of Karin Slaughter, and also Nathan Fillion's The Rookie, ostensibly to allow both shows to have largely unbroken runs starting in early 2025.
Trailing behind ABC is the CW, which announced its fall schedule late last week. It's relatively light on crime dramas with mostly sports and unscripted ("reality show") fodder, although the slate does include Joan, which stars Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) as Joan Hannington, the notorious real-life jewel thief in 1980s London. What the announced schedule doesn't currently include is Walker, the reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Jared Padalecki. The show is on the bubble because such scripted shows are expensive to produce and as Deadline explained, Walker may not be able to continue unless its very low license fee is raised by the network. CW execs have promised a decision "within weeks."
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
On Crime Time FM, William Shaw chatted with Paul Burke about his new novel, The Wild Swimmers; music journalism; respecting the arts; CJ Sansom (RIP); Breen & Tozer; Alexandra Cupidi; and unbridled wealth.
Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Ajay Chowdhury, whose debut crime novel, The Waiter (2021) snagged a Sunday Times crime book of the month title and has also been optioned for television. The fourth book in his Kamil Rahman series, The Spy, was published in April.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story "Voices" written by Nick Andreychuk and read by actor Larry Mattox.
On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed mysteries and thrillers for AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander) Heritage Month.
The Pick Your Poison podcast explained what upholstery has to do with seizures; a poison that murdered children during the Kindergarten Wars, and more.
CW is a train wreck these days under the new ownership. Quit watching Walker this season as they have pretty much ditched the crime part of the show for episodic soap opera drama.
Posted by: Kevin Ralton Tipple | May 20, 2024 at 12:15 PM
I've been hearing rumors about financial and management issues of various types. I think the CW is heading away from scripted shows to more sports and games shows, which is a shame (although they recently admitted their "wrestling" programming went way over budget). I'm hoping "Walker" may find a new network that will be a better home and give it the proper treatment.
Posted by: BV Lawson | May 20, 2024 at 12:22 PM