Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Amy Berg has signed on to direct Every Secret Thing, a film adaptation of Laura Lippman's 2004 mystery novel, starring Diane Lane. The story focuses on two 11-year-old girls who are convicted of murdering a baby and jailed until they turn 18, but after their release, children start to go missing.

Dark Knight Rises star Christian Bale is in negotiations to join the cast of The Creed of Violence, based on the novel by Boston Teran. The plot follows a small-time assassin and a young Bureau of Investigation agent forced to work together during the Mexican revolution of 1910 to infiltrate the Mexican criminal underground.

Dylan McDermott is set to star in the indie action thriller The Freezer, playing a mysterious man who is abducted and appears to be a victim, but has a past in which he was a ruthless killer for hire.

Trailer time: two new previews for the upcoming Bond film Skyfall starring Daniel Craig, here and here.

DigitalSpy has debuted a new preview clip of Jackpot, a film based on a story by author Jo Nesbo that opens on August 10 in the UK. The plot finds a man, Oscar Svendsen, who wakes up surrounded by eight bodies and a police detective with a gun pointed at his chest.

The studio behind Killing Them Softly released a preview trailer of the film about a professional enforcer (Brad Pitt) who investigates a heist that went down during a mob-protected poker game.

TV

Fox-based producer Hutch Parker optioned James Lee Burke's "Dave Robicheaux" novels with an eye toward developing a Fox TV series based on the Vietnam vet-turned police detective who works out of New Orleans. Burke introduced the character in 1987's The Neon Rain. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Hart Hanson (a producer behind Bones), is developing a pilot for CBS based on the Stockholm police inspector Evert Backstrom created by Swedish crime novelist Leif G. W. Persson. Backstrom has been described as "being to investigations what Gregory House was to medical mysteries."

MyAnna Buring and Matthew Goode will star in a new drama for ITV1 based on Erin Kelly's suspense novel The Poison Tree.

Fox ordered an untitled character-driven cop-drama written by Chris Levinson (Touch) about a major crimes detective who starts slowly losing his memory. Faced with the prospect of losing his career and family, the cop ends up putting his entire life under surveillance and ends up opening a window into a world where nothing is as it appears.

Fox has also ordered another unusual pilot, this from the executive producers of House. According to Variety, it's "an ensemble show set in a naval aircraft carrier with an upstairs/downstairs dynamic that separates young men and women in dangerous jobs from a female fighter pilot and her season-long quest to solve a murder that occurs on board."

Athena Karkanis will star in the AMC drama pilot Low Winter Sun, playing an Egyptian-Muslim detective on a Detroit police force that blurs the line between cops and criminals.

The History Channel has partnered with Storyline Entertainment's Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to develop a miniseries based on the true story of Bonnie and Clyde.

BBC America is co-producing a series based on the Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers. The project will fall under the network's weekly hour-long "Dramaville" slot, which also will add Copper in its debut on August 19th, and The Spies of Warsaw to air sometime in the fall.

Marvel and ABC may be working toward a small-screen version set in the Avengers universe, blending elements of a police procedural with high-tech espionage and superhero action.

Dexter may get a ninth season, according to Cinemablend. Showtime entertainment president David Nevins says the network is leaving the door open to continue some of the upcoming season's "game-changing" storylines.

Zap2It featured an article with Frank Spotnitz (The X Files) about his latest television venture, Hunted, which debuts in the fall on Cinemax. The action-thriller stars Melissa George and is set within the world of corporate espionage.

PODCASTS

NPR's summer series about fictional detectives and the cities where they live takes a look at Karin Slaughter and her books set in Georgia. Last week's installment featured Norwegian author Jo Nesbo showing that Oslo really does have a seedy side.

THEATER

Casting was finalized for the Broadway-bound production of Jekyll & Hyde, starring Tony nominee Constantine Maroulis, Deborah Cox and Teal Wicks. Directed and choreographed by Jeff Calhoun, the musical will open on Broadway in the spring of 2013 after a 25-week national tour.

Theatrical impresario Zev Buffman is staging his production of four of Agatha Christies "lost" radio plays as a show titled Agatha Christie's The BBC Murders. The four plays were the result of a bit of detective work on Buffman's part and first collected and performed at the International Mystery Writers' Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 2009. The new production will be staged at several venues in South Florida next year.