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
Amazon Studios has acquired Brian Otting’s script, Never Too Old to Die, as a starring vehicle for Sylvester Stallone. The action comedy features a mysterious murder within a retirement home for spies that sparks a Cold War hero’s personal mission to find the assassin living among them. This will be the first project falling under Stallone’s multi-year, first-look deal with Amazon Studios, an agreement that will have Stallone write, direct, produce and star in both scripted and unscripted TV and film projects for the studio.
When Justin Lin was unable to return to direct the penultimate installment, Fast X, in the long-running Fast & Furious action franchise, Louis Leterrier came aboard for directing duties. Now it appears he will also helm the franchise's 11th and final installment in that series. Although not much is known about the script for the final film, the franchise is known for pitting street racers and spies against assorted criminal elements, and the tenth film will pick up with globe-trotting street racer Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew, as they look to fend off the pair of big bads that are out for them — the cyberterrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron) and her mysterious cohort, Dante (Jason Momoa) — with the help of new friend, Tess (Brie Larson).
Scottish actor James McAvoy and Blumhouse Productions are re-teaming for a remake of the Danish thriller, Speak No Evil, with James Watkins (The Woman in Black) set to direct from his script. Universal has set a theatrical release of Aug. 9, 2024. In the original 2022 movie, a Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday, but what was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.
Cassady McClincy, Dempsey Bryk, Lucy Walters, and Royce Johnson are set to lead The Snare, an indie dramatic thriller marking the feature directorial debut of Merlin Camozzi. The film centers around Dani (McClincy), a straight-A student from the wrong side of the tracks, who has worked toward an academic scholarship for years. When she’s busted with a small amount of drugs, the police pressure her to become an informant, forcing her to choose between the people she most loves and the future she’s worked so hard to create.
Patriot Pictures and XYZ Films have tapped Wayward Entertainment to release the action-thriller, God Is A Bullet from director Nick Cassavetes, in June of this year. The film follows detective Bob Hightower (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who finds his ex-wife murdered and his daughter kidnapped by an insidious cult. Hightower takes matters into his own hands and infiltrates the secretive cult to try to save his daughter. With the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin (Maika Monroe), Hightower and Hardin go down the rabbit hole with The Ferryman (Jamie Foxx) to save his child and find closure for Hardin from the cult – and its maniacal leader (Karl Glusman). The project is inspired by true events and based on the novel of the same name written by Boston Teran.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Bret Easton Ellis’s The Shards, which is both a podcast and novel, is in the works at HBO as a drama series. The Shards is set in 1981 and tracks a group of privileged Los Angeles high school friends as a serial killer strikes across the city. The podcast dropped last year on Ellis’s Patreon, and Knopf published the book in January of this year.
A teaser trailer and poster were unveiled for the eight-part psychological thriller, The Clearing, the first scripted Australian Original series from Disney+. The project is based on the best-selling crime thriller, In The Clearing by author J.P. Pomare, and follows the nightmares of a cult and a woman who’s forced to face the demons from her past in order to stop the kidnapping and coercion of innocent children in the future. Teresa Palmer, Miranda Otto, and Guy Pearce lead the cast.
ABC has renewed the drama series, Will Trent, which is based on the novels by Karin Slaughter, for a second season. The series follows Special Agent Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. As a child, Trent was abandoned and was forced to endure a harsh coming-of-age in Atlanta's overwhelmed foster care system. Now that he is in a position to make a difference, Trent is determined to use his unique point of view to make sure no one is abandoned like he was.
Foxtel has announced a new eight-part mystery thriller, High Country, in partnership with Screen Australia, VicScreen, and Curio Pictures. The series will be headlined by Leah Purcell, with Aaron Penderson, Sara Wiseman, and Ian McElhinney also in the cast. Purcell will play Andrea Whitford, a detective who is transferred to the Victorian High Country. Once there, she is thrust into the baffling mystery of five missing persons who have vanished into the wilderness, and she discovers a complex web involving murder, deceit, and revenge.
As expected, ABC has renewed The Rookie for its sixth season, during which the series will reach its 100th episode. The Rookie is a police procedural crime drama created by Alexi Hawley and follows John Nolan (Nathan Fillion), a man in his forties, who becomes the oldest rookie at the Los Angeles Police Department.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
The latest Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode features the prologue and first chapter of With a Twist by Cathi Stoler, as read by actors Ariel Linn and Sean Hopper.
NPR's Steve Inskeep interviewed David Grann about his retelling of the dramatic Wager Mutiny of 1741, The Wager, which Grann calls "a parable for our own turbulent modern times." The book is being adapted into a movie by Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, the same team who are also bringing another of Grann's historical mysteries to the screen, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.
Crime Time FM featured the first of a series of podcast episodes featuring the Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival, with an introduction to the festival and a chat with authors, committee members, and organizers about upcoming events, including a peek at the National Library of Wales tour.
Stuart Neville joined Luca Veste on Two Crime Writers and a Microphone to talk about his early days growing up in a small town in Northern Ireland, becoming passionate about storytelling at a young age, and how music became an important part of his life.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club continued its series featuring Agatha Award Nominees, including Jennifer Chow who is nominated for her book, Death By Bubble Tea, for Best Contemporary Novel; Rob Osler, who is nominated for a Best First Novel for his book, Devil's Chew Toy; and Harini Nagendra who is nominated for a Best First Novel for her book, The Bangladore Detective's Club.
The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with the first female Bond novelist, Kim Sherwood.
Read or Dead hosts, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester, discussed YA mystery novels.
