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
Stephen King’s The Running Man recently got the green light at Paramount Pictures and will start production in November. Set in a dystopian, 2025 America, the story centers on Ben Richards (Glen Powell), a desperate man who participates in violent reality show, "The Running Man," in order to win enough money to treat his gravely ill daughter. The show follows Richards being chased by numerous hunters sent to kill him. King first published the novel under his pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982, and five years later, it was adapted into a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Paul Michael Glaser. According to an insider with knowledge of the project, the new movie is "a more faithful adaptation" of King’s novel.
Liberty Hobbs, an actor who has appeared in The Syndicate and Grey’s Anatomy, has set up a production outfit and is planning an adaptation of J. A. Baker’s thriller novel, The Perfect Parents. The book depicts a seemingly perfect British family hiding a dark secret: Jackson Hemsworth is an abusive and controlling patriarch, who dies in a joint suicide pact with his wife Lydia; but as the Hemsworth children return to their family home after their parents’ deaths, they must try to make sense of their last act and unravel the grim history of their home, Armett House.
Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel's crime thriller, The Order, based on the 1989 non-fiction book, The Silent Brotherhood by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival with a nine-minute ovation. The Order charts how a series of bank robberies and car heists frightened communities in the Pacific Northwest during the 1980s. It centers around a lone FBI agent (Jude Law) who believes the crimes were not the work of financially motivated criminals, but rather a group of dangerous domestic terrorists, namely the white supremacist gang known as "The Order" and its leader (Nicholas Hoult).
Leo Woodall (One Day) and Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) have signed on to star in Tuner, a new crime thriller directed by Oscar winner Daniel Roher (Navalny). Written by Roher and Robert Ramsey, the film tells the story of a talented piano tuner whose life is turned upside down when he discovers his meticulous skills for tuning pianos can equally be applied to cracking safes.
Grammy Award winner Bad Bunny is the latest to join Austin Butler in Darren Aronofsky’s crime thriller, Caught Stealing, for Sony Pictures. Aronofsky will direct the feature, which is based on the book by Charlie Huston, who is also writing the script. The film follows Hank Thompson (Butler), a burned-out former baseball player, as he’s unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of '90s New York City. The cast also includes Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, and Will Brill.
Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) has joined the cast of Netflix’s highly anticipated Peaky Blinders feature, joining star Cillian Murphy in the Tom Harper-directed film. Netflix greenlighted the project in June with Oppenheimer Oscar winner Murphy returning to the iconic role of Tommy Shelby, leader of the eponymous Birmingham gangster family, a role he played on the BBC TV series from 2013-2022.
A silent Sherlock Holmes film starring Arthur Conan Doyle’s favorite impersonator of the famous sleuth, Eille Norwood, is to be screened for the first time since its release in 1922, following its extensive restoration by the BFI national archive. Titled The Golden Pince-Nez, it is a classic case of Holmes detection, based on a Conan Doyle short story that was first published in The Strand Magazine in 1904. The Golden Pince-Nez was among 45 episodes – each lasting up to 30 minutes – that Norwood made between 1921 and 1923, as well as two features. The restoration world premiere will be held on October 16 as part of the BFI London film festival.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
A TV series based on Kimberly Belle’s thriller novel, The Paris Widow, is in the works. The adaptation kicks off a first-look deal signed between producers Brittany A. Little and Larissa Bell and Little Bell Productions and Universal Television. The Paris Widow novel centers on a dream vacation that turns deadly when secrets from the past catch up to a married couple in Paris.
Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wick franchise, has acquired rights to bestselling author Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger book series through his 87Eleven Entertainment production company to develop for television. The Joe Ledger thriller series consist of 10 novels and various offshoots. Its protagonist, Joe Ledger, is a psychologically fractured Baltimore detective secretly recruited by the government to lead a new task force called the Department of Military Sciences to face off against terrorists using bleeding-edge science weapons. Along with his combat dog Ghost, his team of tier-one special operators, and the resources of the mysterious Mr. Church, Joe faces off against the threats no other team is able to stop.
In a very competitive situation, Hulu has landed the drama, The Spot, starring and executive produced by Oscar and Emmy winner Kate Winslet (Mare of Eastown, Mildred Pierce), with a straight-to-series order. The project comes from Ed Solomon (Full Circle, Men in Black), A24, and 20th Television. Created and written by Solomon, who will serve as showrunner, The Spot follows a successful surgeon (Winslet) and her school teacher husband who suspect she might be responsible for a child’s hit-and-run death. While looking into the matter, dark secrets are revealed that will test their relationship as they confront the possibility of hidden guilt and betrayal.
Eight years after the end of The Good Wife, Robert King and Michelle King are developing another legal drama for CBS. Tentatively titled Cupertino, after the city in California known as the headquarters of Apple, the project is described as a "David vs. Goliath legal show set in Silicon Valley."
Acorn TV and Channel 5 have renewed The Madame Blanc Mysteries for a fourth season. The seven-part series, starring and created by Sally Lindsay, will kick off with a Christmas special at the end of the year. Lindsay returns as Jean White, an antiques expert who moved to France after suspicions arose of how her husband died, and uses her skills to become a PI aiding the local police and simultaneously bonding with the town's popular taxi driver. Steve Edge (Murder They Hope) also stars as Jean's sidekick and potential love interest.
Netflix has canceled Dead Boy Detectives after one season. Based on the comics of the same name by Neil Gaiman and part of The Sandman Universe, Dead Boy Detectives followed Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), "the brains" and "the brawn" behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born decades apart who find each other only in death, Edwin and Charles are best friends and ghosts…who solve mysteries.
Deadline posted a handy list of premiere dates for new and returning series on broadcast, cable, and streaming in U.S. markets, and Paul Hirons via The Killing Times had a preview of crime dramas coming up in the UK.
PODCASTS/RADIO
Meet the Thriller Writer chatted with Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado about their new collaboration, Fatal Intrusion, which pits a Homeland Security investigator and her former quarry against a ruthless ring of serial killers making their way through California.
On Speaking of Mysteries, renowned Sherlockian, Les Klinger, discussed Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell, with author Nicholas Meyer, whose latest novel features an "undiscovered manuscript" by Dr. John H. Watson. The novel follows Sherlock Holmes and Watson as they cross the Atlantic at the height of World War I in pursuit of a mysterious coded telegram.
The Red Hot Chili Writers welcomed mystery writer, Tom Mead, to talk about his latest book, Cabaret Macabre, and his fascination with locked room mysteries; and they also discussed diamond heists and the recently discovered 2,492-carat diamond in Botswana, the world's second largest diamond.
On Crime Time FM, Antonia Senior, a writer, critic, journalist, and podcaster, chatted with Paul Burke about Spymasters, the book and the podcast; the Cambridge Five; and historical fiction.
This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer, Catherine Rymsha, about her debut crime novel, Stunning.
The Cops and Writers podcast welcomed Steve Stratton, award-winning author, Green Beret, and former Secret Service Agent, to discuss his newest book, Shadow Sanction.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode is up, featuring the first chapter of Going Home by Sharon Marchisello as read by actor Amelia Ryan.
The Pick Your Poison podcast covered an over-the-counter drug that is lethal to pets; an important toxicology tool that was plotted on a cocktail napkin; and the medical use of a barbiturate coma.
Mystery Magazine, formerly Mystery Weekly, has published their final issue. Horrible news. https://mysterymagazine.ca/submit
Posted by: Kevin Ralton Tipple | September 02, 2024 at 11:21 AM
I saw that in the SMFS forum after I initially posted this, Kevin, so I'll add an update shortly. Like the other SMFS authors, I'm in mourning. I just wrote to "Mystery Mag" to offer my condolences and also to thank them for their support of crime fiction, especially short stories, since the genre tends to get short shrift most of the time. I do wish them all the best, though, in whatever they do next.
Posted by: BV Lawson | September 02, 2024 at 12:09 PM