The remake of The Thin Man, based on Dashiell Hammett's classic novel with Nick and Nora Charles, appears to be full steam ahead, with author and screenwriter Jerry Stahl hired to craft the script. Johnny Depp is the driving force behind the project, as both producer and star.
A film adaptation taken from Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series is looking more and more likely, too, as Connelly is in talks with Yellow Bird, the same Swedish film company behind the Stieg Larsson crime novel trilogy.
Katherine Heigl's film portrayal of bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is still in the works, but the studio is moving the premiere from this summer to January 2012. The story is taken from the 1994 novel One for the Money by author Janet Evanovich. (Hat tip to Omnimystery.)
Robert De Niro will star in the upcoming cop drama Freelancers, directed by Jessy Terrero. Joining him in the cast is Curtis Jackson, playing the son of a slain NYPD officer who joins the Police Academy and is taken under the wing of his father's former partner Captain Vic Sarcone (De Niro), only to be pulled into a rogue street vice task force. Actor Forest Whitaker is also in talks to join the production.
TV
The Sheriff Longmire series by author Craig Allen Johnson being adapted for a TV pilot has added Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) to the cast. She'll play a deputy opposite Wyoming Sheriff Longmire (Matrix actor Robert Taylor), to be joined by fellow castmates Lou Diamond Phillips, Bailey Chase (Saving Grace) and Cassidy Freeman (Smallville).
Shots Magazine has more information on the two-part ITV dramatization of Sophie Hannah's Point of Rescue (retitled Case Sensitive), premiering May 2-3 in the UK. Olivie Williams stars in the lead role of DS Charlie Zailer, with Darren Boyd playing DC Simon Waterhouse. Rounding out the cast are Rupert Graves and Amy Beath Hayes. BBC Worldwide has picked up international distribution, so look for it to appear in the U.S. at some future date.
Elizabeth Foxwell makes note of a new series on Canada's Showcase TV titled Endgame, which features an agoraphobic chessmaster as sleuth. She includes links to a trailer and review, and points out some other chess ties to crime fiction.
Rizzoli and Isles has a new recurring cast member. Chris Vance from Prison Break will play Sgt. Major Charles "Casey" Jones, an old flame of Rizzoli's (Angie Harmon) who comes back into her life just as she's struggling to recover from being shot and nearly killed in the line of duty. The season two opener is scheduled for July 11th.
The Canadian drama Rookie Blue, a summer hit for ABC last year, also returns for a second season, beginning June 16th. The show follows the professional and personal lives of five rookie cops as they navigate their first years on the job, and stars Missy Peregrym, Gregory Smith, Charlotte Sullivan, Enuka Okuma, Travis Milne, Ben Bass and Eric Johnson.
TNT has renewed critically the acclaimed drama Southland for a 4th season, ordering 10 new episodes. The network also greenlighted 10 episodes of a new drama, Perception, starring Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) as Dr. Geoffrey Pierce, an eccentric neuroscientist who helps the federal government crack difficult cases. The cast includes Rachael Leigh Cook (She's All That), as FBI agent Kate Rossi, Pierce's former student and the person responsible for recruiting him to work for the government, and Kelly Rowan (The O.C.) as Natalie Vincent, Pierce's best friend and his intellectual equal. The show is expected to premiere in 2012.
PODCASTS/RADIO
WGVU interviewed Harlan Coben, with the author discussing his latest Myron Bolitar novel, Live Wire.
Ian Rankin was one of the authors chosen to talk about the craft of writing for The Guardian, and admits he's "really not in control at all of what I'm writing. It's almost as though before I start writing there's a shape sitting there that I've not seen yet, and when I start to write the novel the shape will reveal itself to me, the novel will decide which way it wants to go."
THEATER
Agatha Christie—in Chinese! Two institutions in Shanghai, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre and the Shanghai Mousetrap Drama Studio, have been authorized to produce a total of 19 Chinese stage versions of various Christie novels.
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