Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Although as Cinema Blend notes, it's not a done deal, Denzel Washington is in talks to star in a film adaptation of the TV series The Equalizer. The show aired in the 1980s and starred British actor Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, a former secret agent who tries to atone for past sins by offering his services as a troubleshooter, bodyguard and investigator.

Writer/director Sacha Gervasi is adapting the film projected Headhunters, an English language adaptation of Jo Nesbo's novel, about a corporate headhunter who steals artwork from the homes of his applicants and gets caught up in murder.

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo stars Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara and director David Fincher haven't yet signed on for the second two films in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, but the projects appear to be moving forward, with Fincher indicating they would likely be shot back to back.

Warner Bros. has acquired the true-story screenplay, The Devil in the White City, about a mass murderer who killed scores of mostly young women during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Graham Moore to write the adapted screenplay, and Leonardo DiCaprio is on board to star as serial killer Henry H. Holmes, described as a "19th century Hannibal Lecter." (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

TV

The film adaptation of Josh Bazell's debut novel Beat the Reaper seems to be on hold, but now it appears that Leonardo DiCaprio will executive produce an HBO series based on the novel. The book centers on Peter Brown, a young ER doctor with a problem–a patient who recognizes him from his days working for a notorious crime family.

Law & Order: SVU's Chris Meloni will guest start in True Blood as part of the HBO vampire drama's fifth season, playing “an ancient powerful vampire who holds the fate of Bill and Eric in his hands.”

FX has ordered The Americans, a drama about two KGB spies posing as Americans living in the suburbs in the early 1980s. The pilot is executive produced by Graham Yost (Justified).

PODCASTS/RADIO

NPR's Morning Edition spoke with Michael Sims, editor of In The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories. The book examines the development of crime writing in the late 19th century, including icons such as Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, as well as lesser-known writers, many of them women.