Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Clint Eastwood plans to unveil his latest film, the biopic about the life of iconic lawman J. Edgar Hoover, on November 3rd during the AFI Festival in Hollywood. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the FBI director and was written by Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black.

Anthony Hopkins is actively pursuing the leading role in Solace from New Line pictures. Hopkins would play John Clancy, a former doctor with psychic abilities who works for the FBI and is drawn into a unique serial killer case that pits him against a formidable foe.

Michael Keaton and Michelle Monaghan will star in Penthouse North, a psychological thriller being directed by Joseph Ruben. The plot hinges on a photojournalist (Monaghan) haunted by a tragic event who has escaped from the world in an upscale New York penthouse, only to be terrorized by  a smooth but sadistic criminal (Keaton) looking for a hidden fortune.

The police thriller Rampart, based on the novel by James Ellroy, turned out to be one of the Toronto Film Festival's hottest items. The movie was adapted and directed by Oren Moverman, who says he and Ellroy didn't agree on a lot of things, but he feels that tension plays off in the film.

Crime Scene Pictures is to produce the action thriller Man With a Gun, based on a screenplay by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The contemporary Western is about a man seeking redemption as Eisenhower "Ike" Bell goes on a mission to infiltrate the gangs of drug warlords in a U.S. border town.

James McTeigue, director of the upcoming Edgar Allan Poe movie The Raven, is in talks to helm the movie Ness/Capone. It's said to put a new spin on the epic battle between Eliot Ness and Al Capone during the Prohibition Era 1920s.

On the Criminal Elements blog, Clare Toohey posted the video "teaser trailer" for the upcoming movie based on Jo Nesbo's novel Headhunters about a corporate headhunter who supports his luxurious lifestyle and his wife's fledgling gallery with art theft on the side.

TV

After Fox canceled the long-running program America's Most Wanted, it was considered a sad day among some law enforcement circles. The show was responsible for the capture of 1,154 wanted criminals in the U.S. and 30 countries, including 17 on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, and the rescue of 61 children and missing persons. Now is seems the show will continue after all on its new network home, Lifetime. 

PBS is premiering the first of three episodes of the Ken Burns documentary Prohibition on October. 2nd. PBS executive John Wilson says "It has all the excitement and drama of any feature film from that era—sex, violence, wild women, thugs and guns—set against this great bitter cultural divide in the country."

The Prohibition era is a hot theme right now. In addition to the Ness/Capone movie and Ken Burns documentary, HBO's popular freshman drama Boardwalk Empire, also set in the Prohibition era, took home seven Creative Arts Emmy awards Saturday night for casting, makeup, art direction, editing, visual effects, sound editing and cinematography.

Producer Mark Gordon has sold a pilot for a crime drama to ABC titled Untouchable. It's described as a "stylish, sexy modernization of Miami Vice for the 21st century," featuring  a hard-charging female FBI agent with a blue-collar background teamed with a reckless, independently wealthy LAPD detective to take on organized crime. The pilot is being written by Chap Taylor and directed by Rob Bowman, the man behind The X Files and Castle.

Thriller writer Joshua Cain tweeted that 20th Century Fox has optioned his books with FBI consultant Esme Stuart for TV, with Barry Josephson and Daniel Voll headlining the project.

Omnimystery is profiling the new and returning crime dramas that will soon start gracing your TV screens, thereby taking care of any withdrawal you've been experiencing. First up is Unforgettable starring Poppy Montgomery as Carrie Wells, an enigmatic former police detective with a rare condition that gives her a perfect memory.

ABC has purchased a globetrotting adventure based on the Jack West Jr. series by best-selling Australian thriller novelist Matthew Reilly. Titled Seven Wonders, the project is a treasure hunt in the spirit of Raiders of the Lost Ark and National Treasure, featuring a five-member team led with commando-turned-archeologist West as they search the world for seven pieces of an ancient relic with special powe
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Syfy is renewing its freshmen series Alphas for a second season, ordering up thirteen more episodes. Alphas follows a group of people with extraordinary abilities brought together by neurologist and psychiatrist Dr. Lee Rosen (David Straithairn) to investigate crime cases involving other people with similar abilities.

A production crew is set to film at the Clark County coroner's office in Las Vegas, Nevada, as a potential reality-TV series for the Discovery Channel. According to a county representative, the show's producers want to "focus more on the 'science' of investigating a death instead of the gory details."

If you're one of the few people who watched the summer Lifetime drama The Protector, don't expect to see it next year, because the network pulled the plug. The show starred Ally Walker as a single mom juggling her personal life and her career as a Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective.

PODCASTS/RADIO

NPR's Crime in the City series has concluded for another summer, but you can catch all of the archived interviews via the NPR site. Featured author/city shows included Benjamin Black on Dublin, Ireland; Petros Markaris in Athens, Greece; Tom Rob Smith and Moscow; Michael Harvey in Chicago; Lowen Clausen and Seattle; George Pelecanos  in D.C.; and Archer Mayor in Vermont. Features from 2009 and 2010 and there for your listening pleasure, as well.