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/MOVIESPatrick Schwarzenegger (
The White Lotus)
will star as a down-on-his-luck tennis pro who is drawn into the dark world of match-fixing to make ends meet for his family in the crime-thriller,
The Journeyman, directed by Bill Dubuque (
Ozark). Leslie Grace (
In the Heights) will co-star as his fiercely loyal fiancée.
Indonesian singer and actress Agnez Mo, who recently made her English-language screen debut in season 4 of Amazon hit,
Reacher,
will take on her first English-language movie role in the cyber thriller,
C.L.A.Y., joining Nicolas Cage, Michael Sheen, Jordi Mollà, Emilio Sakraya, and Adrian Topol. The film follows a brilliant but socially invisible computer prodigy who finds purpose and belonging when he is drawn into C.L.A.Y. (Clowns Laughing At You), an underground hacker collective whose daring exploits turn digital provocation into real-world consequences. As the group’s notoriety grows, their actions attract the attention of intelligence agencies, criminal syndicates, and rival hackers.
Lyrical Media and Embrace have sold the feature package
Butcher & Blackbird, a dark romance based on the books by Brynne Weaver, to Amazon MGM Studios,
for release worldwide on Prime Video. Chris McKay (
The Tomorrow War), is set to direct. The first installment of Weaver's bestselling trilogy,
Butcher & Blackbird follows two competing killers (Emma Laird and Thomas Doherty) who target other serial killers as they attempt to one-up each other. As their unlikely bond grows into something deeper, they start to wonder if a future together could ever be possible.
TELEVISION/STREAMINGElgin James (
Mayans M.C.,
The Outlaws), who is currently shooting his upcoming
Prison Break series for Hulu, has already lined up his next project:
a TV adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s Southern Gothic crime thriller novel,
King of Ashes, at FX. The drama is centered on Roman Carruthers, who returns home to his family’s crematory business in Virginia after his father is left comatose in a suspicious hit-and-run, only to discover his brother’s criminal debts have put the entire family in danger—and he’ll do whatever it takes to protect them.
Lucy Fry (
Godfather of Harlem) and Amanda Brugel (
The Handmaid’s Tale)
are set as series regulars opposite Jensen Ackles in MGM+'s crime thriller series,
Rules of Prey. Based on the first novel in John Sandford’s "Prey" books, the series follows Lucas Davenport (Ackles), formerly a detective in the Minneapolis Police Department, drawn out of seclusion back into law enforcement to investigate a series of confounding murders designed to send a message specifically to him. When an ingenious serial killer begins murdering Minneapolis citizens, Davenport, a brilliant polymath and unconventional investigator, takes the case, sparking an intense psychological duel with an equally intelligent adversary. As Davenport deciphers the killer’s twisted moral code and personal vendetta, he must match wits with a predator operating by his own rules of justice, risking everything to stop a killer who sees their conflict as the ultimate game. Fry will portray Marcy, an inquisitive and unrelenting BCA Special Agent. Brugel will play Rose Marie, an observant yet calculated BCA Superintendent who has, over the years, seen it all.
Kari Skogland will direct Vigilant, a vigilante crime thriller based on a Skúli Sigurðsson novel and adapted for TV by
Severance star Ólafur Darri Ólafsson. ZDF Studios will sell the English-language show internationally.
Vigilant follows a female journalist who is approached by a self-styled vigilante who is waging a violent campaign against sexual predators. The reporter initially sees him as a voice for the voiceless, but soon begins to suspect a darker truth. As her reporting fuels a nationwide debate, the series explores whether violence can ever be justified when the justice system fails.
Varada Sethu (
The Other Bennet Sister), Ethan Moorhouse (
Ludwig), Tuppence Middleton (
Downton Abbey: A New Era), Merab Ninidze (
Homeland), and Joshua McGuire (
Anatomy of a Scandal)
have joined the Season 7 cast of Apple TV's Emmy-winning spy drama,
Slow Horses. They join Gary Oldman and James Callis, who returns as Claude Whelan, in the upcoming season.
Slow Horses follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 known un-affectionately as Slough House. Oldman stars as Jackson Lamb, the brilliant but cantankerous leader of the spies, who end up in Slough House due to their career-ending mistakes as they frequently find themselves blundering around the smoke and mirrors of the espionage world. Season 7, based on the
Bad Actors novel in Mick Herron’s Slough House book series, sees Oldman’s Jackson Lamb and his Slow Horses on the hunt to find and neutralize a mole at the heart of British Government before the mole can bring down the state.
The crime caper
Tall Tales & Murder has racked up more international sales as the team behind the show turn their attention to Season 2. The series bowed on RTÉ in Ireland last month to critical acclaim, and it will soon be on the BBC in the UK and also in other markets.
Tall Tales & Murder is based upon the comedic crime "Dublin Trilogy" by Caimh McDonnell and landed a two-season order off the bat. The cast includes Ella Lily Hyland (
Black Doves), Aidan Gillen (
Game of Thrones) and Philippa Dunne (
Amandaland). The series begins as a
nurse at a Dublin nursing home and a car thief in debt to a crime boss
work together when a comatose patient wakes, reveals he's a gangster,
and claims to have buried Celtic gold that multiple criminals pursue. PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIOIn the latest episode of
Spybrary, host Matthew Hurst chatted with crime fiction legend Sara Paretsky, best known for her pioneering private investigator V.I. Warshawski series, about her new spy thriller,
Bad Company.
Martin Edwards chatted with Paul Burke on
Crime Time FM about his new novel,
Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife, and some new anthologies.
The latest author to be featured on the
Sisters in Crime podcast was Raquel V. Reyes, who uses her Cuban-American heritage in the Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series, which is in production to become the TV series,
Miami Spice.
On the
Poisoned Pen Bookstore podcast, John Charles was in conversation with Jaime Jo Wright, discussing her new thriller,
The Resurrection of Evania James.
The latest episode of the
Crime Cafe podcast featured an interview with true crime writer, Doug Kari.
