MOVIES
Informant Media has optioned William Dielh's novel Hooligans based on a screenplay he created before his death. In addition, Diehl's 27 has been optioned and Sharky's Machine is also going to be remade.
Constantin Film has acquired the feature film adaptation rights to 28 Minutes, the forthcoming crime novel from Dave Zeltserman, although the title of the move will be changed to Outsourced.
Writer Mark Bomback has been chosen by New Line and Playtone to adapt Agent Zigzag, a WWII spy drama. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are producing.
Universal has purchased Rites of Men by Jonathan Herman, the story of a working-class single father whose world is shattered by the unsolved murder of his only son. It's the second Herman work signed recently, after Warner Brothers and Silver Pictures picked up Herman's bank heist thriller Conviction.
Liam Neeson had been under consideration for Unknown White Male, an international thriller Joel Silver's Dark Castle is producing for Warner Brothers. Neeson was to play a doctor visiting Berlin who suffers an injury that leads to a coma. When the doctor awakens, he finds he has been replaced by another man and then sets off on a quest to discover the truth. Given the unfortunate parallel between the protagonist's story line and the circumstances of Liam's wife, Natasha Richardson's death, it remains to be seen whether the project will proceed.
Paramount Pictures has acquired bigscreen rights to John Le Carre's espionage thriller The Night Manager, with Brad Pitt's Plan B company producing.
Paramount has also grabbed bigscreen rights to an upcoming Wired magazine article about a band of Italian diamond thieves. J.J. Abrams is producing through his Bad Robot shingle. Joshua Davis, who has turned a number of his Wired articles into feature projects, wrote the story for the April issue of the magazine.
The companies behind the screen adaptations of Stieg Larsson's trilogy, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will now be shown worldwide in cinemas. Originally conceived as a miniseries, the success in Sweden of the original showings prompted the about-face.
TV
CBS has informed the producers of Without a Trace and Cold Case that the long-running procedurals are facing possible cancellation come May.
Northern Lights, the Lifetime movie based on the Nora Roberts series, drew the highest ratings for the network this year to date. Up next: the second of four Roberts adaptations, Midnight Bayou.
A pilot episode based upon M.J. Rose's novels The Reincarnationist and The Memoirist is currently being shot in Baltimore and "looks like a strong candidate to make the Fox lineup next season," the Baltimore Sun reported.
Lost's Reiko Aylesworth has landed a role in Jerry Bruckheimer's untitled ABC drama pilot about amateur detectives.
ITV Global Entertainment has sold several drama series to France 3, including the murder mystery drama series Lewis and the hit Canadian crime thriller Murdoch Mysteries, based on the novels by Maureen Jennings.
In more international "pick up" news, CBS Paramount International Television has licensed the new 13-part murder mystery series Harper's Island to BBC Three for launch in the U.K. later this year.
Lifetime Television will produce TV movie adaptations of Patricia Cornwell's bestselling crime novels At Risk and The Front for Lifetime Network, marking the first time the author's work will be adapted.
WEB/RADIO
CSI's Anthony Zuikera is creating a digital crime novel series, The Dark Chronicles, a serial killer trilogy to feature Steve Dark, a former member of the FBI Special Circumstances Unit.
The Oxford DNB Podcast series featured a reading of the biography of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
KALW's Book Talk program interviewed Peter Robinson about his latest Inspector Alan Banks mystery, All the Colors of Darkness, on March 22nd, The week prior (March 15), it was Jacqueline Winspear, talking about her latest Maisie Dobbs mystery, Among the Mad.
