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/MOVIESRachel Sennott (
I Love LA)
has booked a key supporting role alongside Chris Hemsworth, Taron Egerton, Zazie Beetz, and Alec Baldwin in Matt Ross’s feature
Kockroach, which begins filming in Australia next week. The New York-set crime pic, based on the William Lashner novel, is the story of a mysterious stranger who takes on the city’s criminal underworld, transforming himself into a larger-than-life boss in a city where power is everything. Ross directs from a screenplay by Jonathan Ames (
You Were Never Really Here).
Chris Hemsworth has closed a deal to reprise his role of Tyler Rake in
Extraction 3, the new installment in the hit action-film franchise. Insiders add that Sam Hargrave is back to direct, with Idris Elba and Golshifteh Farahani also back on board to star. David Weil is writing the script, and although plot details are unknown at this time, it's a safe bet there will be another high-octane thrill ride as Rake (Hemsworth) and his team are sent on another dangerous extraction mission. The series is based on the graphic novel Ciudad by Ande Parks, from a story by Parks, Joe Russo & Anthony Russo, with illustrations by Fernando Leon Gonzalez.
Emma Elle Paterson (Amazon’s
The Boys),
has signed on to lead and produce a feature titled
Candy from filmmaker Jessica Michael Davis. Based on a short story by Mindy McGinnis, who co-wrote the screenplay with Davis, the film has been described as an "elevated genre-bending thriller" and follows a young woman (Davis) who reclaims autonomy through a radical bodily transformation, yet as she adopts the persona of "Candy," empowerment becomes a seductive descent into vengeance and moral ambiguity. Also attached to star in the film is Darius Jordan Lee (
Dexter: Resurrection).
Deadline reported that
Ride Along 3 is in early development at Universal with stars Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, director Tim Story, and producer Will Packer all in early discussions to return. The news coincides with an announcement that the studio closed a deal with scribe Daniel Gold (
Tough Guys) to pen the screenplay. The first
Ride Along came out in 2014 and followed security guard Ben Barber (Hart) who must prove himself to his girlfriend’s brother, top police officer James Payton (Ice Cube). In doing so, Ben rides along with James on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta. In 2016's part two, the duo head to Miami to take down a drug dealer who is supplying drugs to Atlanta.
Vertical has
acquired U.S. rights to Oscar nominee Andrew Niccol’s crime thriller,
Lords of War, from Oscar-winning studio Vendôme Pictures, which produced and financed the film. The sequel to the 2005 movie,
Lord of War, which starred Oscar winner Nicolas Cage, sees the actor reprising his role as Yuri Orlov, the world’s most notorious arms dealer. When Yuri discovers he has a son, Anton (Bill Skarsgård), a ruthless mercenary mastermind bent on surpassing his father by building a private army and exploiting America’s wars in the Middle East, he is thrust into a deadly battle for legacy with the global arms trade hanging in the balance.
Anthony Mackie (
Captain America) and Dafne Keen (
Deadpool &
Wolverine)
are starring in the action-thriller,
Barracuda, which gets underway this week in New Mexico. Neil Burger (
Divergent) is directing the movie, which will also star Steven Bauer (
Ray Donovan) and Anthony Del Negro (
Running Point). The story centers on Karl (Mackie), a former smuggler with a haunted past, who storms a nightclub in Mexico to rescue Jodie (Keen), a kidnapped teenage girl. The breakout turns into a high-speed race when Karl kills the brother of the ruthless club owner and steals his prized 1973 Plymouth Barracuda. Now hunted by relentless criminals, Karl and Jodie tear across the desert with no way to slow down.
TELEVISION/STREAMINGKevin Bacon is set to lead Southern Bastards, a new Hulu drama pilot from director Reinaldo Marcus Green (
King Richard). Based on the award-winning graphic novel series by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour,
Southern Bastards follows a tenacious military vet into Craw County, Alabama, in search of her estranged father. What she finds is a murderous hornet’s nest of organized crime run by the winningest high school football coach in the South. Bacon plays Earl, the son of the legendary Sheriff Bert, who ruled Craw County with an iron fist. Earl is a tough but humble blue-collar army veteran — eager to mend fences and reconnect with his daughter, and not afraid to stir the hornet’s nest that is Craw County.
Filming has begun on the new series of the acclaimed BBC murder mystery drama
Shetland, with Ashley Jensen and Alison O’Donnell reprising their roles as DI Ruth Calder and DI Alison "Tosh" McIntosh. Most of the cast regulars also return, including Steven Robertson (playing DC Sandy Wilson); Lewis Howden (Billy McCabe); Samuel Anderson (Procurator Fiscal Matt Blake); Steven Miller (Rev Alan Calder); Anne Kidd (pathologist Cora McLean); Angus Miller (Donnie, Tosh’s partner); Conor McCarry (PC Alex Grant); and Eubha Akilade (PC Lorna Burns). Originally based on award-winning novels by crime writer Ann Cleeves, the forthcoming new series centers around an historic murder which will forever change the lives of all those connected in the present day.
Fox has renewed Memory of a Killer for a second season. Inspired by the book and the 2003 Belgian film,
De Zaak Alzheimer, the drama stars Patrick Dempsey as hitman Angelo Flannery/Doyle, who leads a dangerous double life while hiding an even deadlier personal secret: he is slowly losing his memory. To further complicate things, he discovers his wife’s recent death may not have been an accident. When someone comes after his pregnant daughter Maria (Odeya Rush), it’s clear the wall between his lives has been breached. Angelo must stop whoever’s coming for his family by searching his past hits for clues, and the list is very long. Michael Imperioli plays Dutch Forlanni, whose restaurant is a front for criminal enterprise, and who serves as Angel's employer, giving him the targets for his hits. The cast also includes Richard Harmon, Peter Gadiot and Daniel David Stewart.
The writing team of Tawnya Bhattacharya and Ali Laventhol
have a new project in development at Hulu: a TV adaptation of the Trish Lundy YA thriller,
The One That Got Away With Murder. The show’s logline is as follows: "When a guarded new girl with a dark past transfers to a high school across the country, she’s drawn to the former golden boy who is now a notorious outcast suspected of killing his girlfriend. Determined to know the truth, she secretly investigates, uncovering a web of secrets and lies, as she closes in on the killer who got away with murder."
Prime Video has given
a straight-to-series order to the Texas-set crime thriller,
Calamities, from showrunner, writer, and director David Weil (
Hunters). Per the streamer: “
Calamities is a gripping and propulsive Texas crime thriller like no other. After a drug deal explodes into violence, a quiet border town is thrust into a deadly collision course between a small-town sheriff looking for answers from her past, a sociopathic hit-woman, an overly eager FBI agent, and a ruthless sect of the cartel.”
Paramount+
has added the heist thriller,
The Day (working title), to its British slate, to be led by Minnie Driver (
Good Will Hunting), Luca Pasqualino (
The Musketeers), and Louisa Harland (
Derry Girls). The eight-part series is based on the Belgian show,
De Dag and is set across a single day, following a terrifying bank siege that starts when police stumble across a bank robbery mid-heist, prompting the criminals to barricade themselves inside. The story opens from the police perspective, led by hostage negotiator Sylvia “Vox” Voxley (Driver), as she battles time and rising pressure to save the hostages. But as the crisis hurtles towards a breaking point, the story rewinds, with viewers pulled inside the bank to relive the same events through the eyes of the robbers and their hostages.
Peabody Award-winning producer, showrunner, and writer Gary Lennon (
Hightown)
is developing the new crime drama Los Feliz at Starz. The show is an emotional high-stakes crime drama about an affair that destroys friendships, marriages, and careers – ultimately leading to a murder case that divides a community and destroys them all. The series is set in the Los Angeles neighborhood of the same name near Hollywood.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIONPR's Scott Simon
chatted with V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke, the friends and authors who co-wrote the novel
The Ending Writes Itself, part mystery and part send-up of the publishing industry.
On
Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed missing person mysteries and thrillers by Tana French, Tiffany D. Jackson, Jess Kidd, Ginger Reno, Kalynn Bayron, and Luke Dumas.
On the latest
Murder Junction, hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee chatted with Anthony Horowitz, creator of the Alex Rider novels and TV shows such as
Midsommer Murders and
Foyle's War. Anthony discussed his latest crime novel,
A Deadly Episode, and what keeps him writing.
Alan Peterson, host of the
Meet the Thriller Author podcast, spoke with bestselling author Mark Stevens, creator of the Flynn Martin thriller series, about his latest novel,
Two Truths and a Lie.On the
Cops and Writers podcast, Patrick J. O'Donnell interviewed bestselling author and publicist, Deborah Levison, whose first book,
The Crate, won several awards and garnered rave reviews including an endorsement from Lee Child, about her newly released title,
A Novel Crime.
The
Pick Your Poison podcast with Dr. Jen Prosser investigated a toxin so powerful that a little smeared on the tip of a blowgun arrow is enough to silence every muscle in your body, including your diaphragm, stopping your breathing—and how a poison like this became a commonly used drug in modern medicine. She also went inside a Siberian prison cell where one of the most high-profile political prisoners on the planet collapses and dies. Was this a state-sponsored assassination using a poison from the rainforest?
