Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Michael Koryta's novel The Cypress House is headed to the big screen. Producer Chris Columbus and his 1492 Pictures company acquired the screen rights for the novel, featuring a WWI veteran who has deadly premonitions. It's set against the backdrop of Florida's Gulf Coast during a 1935 hurricane.

Francis Ford Coppola has a horror thriller in the works titled Twixt Now and Sunrise. Although details are sketchy, Edgar Allan Poe somehow figures into the plot that also includes actor Bruce Dern playing a sheriff in a "spooky town with a murder mystery." Val Kilmer also stars as a second-tier mystery writer who's in town to research the town's secrets. Apparently at least part of the movie will be in rhyme, according to Dern.

The new film version of John Le Carre's spy thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy now has a U.S. release date—November 18th. It stars Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Colin Firth (recent Oscar winner for The King's Speech) and Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC's Sherlock).

Shooting of the film adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel Freaky Deaky starts Jun 27 in Detroit. Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, William H. Macy and Craig Robinson are in talks (but basically set to go) for starring roles in the film about 60s radicals-turned capitalists who try to use their bomb-making skills to make millions. The film will be directed by Charles Matthau, Walter Matthau's son.

Fresh from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, director David Fincher has decided to option the thriller Panic Attack by Jason Starr. The plot centers on a New York shrink after he kills a home intruder, then has to face a media frenzy and the victim's revenge-minded accomplice who stalks the psychiatrist and his family.

TV

The Australia Broadcasting Corporation gave the greenlight to the 13-part series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries based on the novels by Kerry Greenwood, featuring sleuth Phryne Fisher and the jazz clubs of late 1920s Melbourne. Essie Davis will star as Fisher and be joined in the cast by Nathan Page, Miriam Margoyles and Hugh Johnston-Burt.

Production has also begun on a new adaptation for ITV in the UK of author Lynda La Plante's Above Suspicion series, with rookie female detective Anna Travis. It's set to be a three-part miniseries for broadcast next year, starring Kelly Reilly and Ciarán Hinds in the story of a brutal murder of a young British film star.

The latest made-for-TV adaptation of the Jesse Stone series, created by the late Robert B. Parker, has begun production in Nova Scotia. Tom Selleck continues in the title role as the former Chief of Police for the coastal town of Paradise, Massachuetts. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Author Marcus Sakey posted news on his web site that a TV pilot with Sakey as host was picked up for a series on the Travel Channel to air later this year. The working title is Hidden City, and it features Sakey exploring different places and the crimes that helped define them. (He calls it "Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations meets Castle.")

The CBC has ordered a new police procedural pilot titled Cracked, about a team of police and psychiatric nurses. The pilot has yet to be cast, but includes police officer Aidan Black and psychologist Daniella Ortiz and their Abnormal and Violent Crimes Unit solving crimes amid the unpredictable world of the emotionally disturbed. The fictional drama is inspired by the experiences of former police officer Calum deHartog, who also serves as a producer.

John Lucas (American Psycho, The Lincoln Lawyer, J. Edgar) has been lured to the small screen to star in NBC's midseason drama The Firm, based on John Grisham's best-selling novel. The series actually takes place 10 years after the events depicted in the book, following Mitchell McDeere (Lucas), a mob informant who emerges with his family from the Federal Witness Protection program to reclaim their lives.

And here's a handy little calendar where you can keep track of the June 2011 summer TV premieres, including White Collar, Covert Affairs, Burn Notice, Rookie Blue, Leverage and more.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Decoder Ring Theatre is a Toronto-based theatre and audio production company that runs an award-winning podcast consisting of several series. Included are "Red Panda Adventures," "Black Jack Justice," "Slick Bracer" and "There Will Be Rain Tonight," all done in the style of old-time radio in multi-episode arcs. New releases are posted on the 1st and 15th of every month.