Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) is penning his first actual screenplay, one based on his short story "Animal Rescue" from the recent Boston Noir anthology.

Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and DreamWorks Pictures have acquired the film rights to the Locke & Key series of suspense comics written by Joe Hill, who also happens to be the son of author Stephen King.

Sam Worthington is headlining the cast of the murder mystery movie Texas Killing Fields, based on a script by Donald F. Ferrarone, with Michael Mann (Public Enemies) producing. Worthington will play a local homicide detective who works with a New York transplant to wage a war against serial killers, based on a true story which involved two decades of homicides with as many as 60 victims.

Katherine Heigl (Grey's Anatomy) has been chosen to star in Janet Evanovich's novel One for the Money, portraying the author's popular bounty hunter Stephanie Plum from the mystery series. The script won't be written by Evanovich, however, but by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith. A glance around cyberspace finds that Heigl may not be a "plum" choice, according to many fans of the series.

It appears that an English-language remake of the Danish film Terribly Happy is in the works. The plot hinges on a down-on-his luck police officer who finds strange happenings in a remote Danish village where he's trying to start a new life.

TV

HBO has picked up a five-hour miniseries titled Mildred Pierce, based on James M. Cain's noir novel and adapted by Todd Haynes and Jon Raymond. Kate Winslet has been signed to star, with production beginning in April.

The cast for the remake of Hawaii 5-0 is shaping up. Alex O'Loughlin (Moonlight) will take on the role of Detective Steve McGarrett. O'Loughlin joins Lost star Daniel Dae Kim, who will play Detective Chin Ho Kelly.

Hart Hanson (creator of Bones) will serve as executive producer of the Fox remake of the British series Prime Suspect. The new project, titled Pleading Guilty, is a police procedural centering on rogue CIA operatives.

New Zealenders take note:  Alix Bosco's debut thriller novel Cut and Run is being turned into a two-part TV mini-series. It features a middle-aged legal researcher named Anna Markunas who discovers that the murder of a celebrated athlete isn't what it appears to be.

Writer Curt Evans analyzes a new British adaption of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel Three Act Tragedy which may be making its way to U.S. airwaves soon. Evans points out that the novel was "originally published in significantly different version in the United States and Great Britain. The British film is on the whole loyal to the British version of the novel, though the murderer is made
more sympathetic, reflecting the more ambiguous moral tone of modern crime novels and films."

Frank Grillo (Prison Break) has been signed as the lead in ABC's supernatural crime drama series The Gates. The plot concerns a big-city cop who becomes chief of police in a sleepy planned community and finds there's more to the residents than meets the eye.

WEB/RADIO

NPR's Morning Media Menu featured author David Peace (Red Riding Quartet) who talked about his admiration of James Ellroy and why Peace feels "I don't really see the point of making up crimes."