Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Warner Bros acquired screen rights to The Son, the latest thriller by bestselling Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbo, after a multi-studio auction. The novel, which won't be published until 2014, focuses on a young man in prison for crimes he didn't commit who escapes to avenge the killing of his father, an alleged corupt cop who turns out to be innocent. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

Mario Bello (The Touch) has joined the cast of the kidnapping thriller Prisoners, playing the wife of Hugh Jackman's character in the film. Prisoners follows a small town carpenter who tries to find his kidnapped daughter when the police can't. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the antagonistic detective assigned to the case.

Michel Roskam in talks to replace Limitless director Neil Burger on Animal Rescue, a Boston-set crime drama written based on one of Dennis Lehane's short stories. The plot hinges on a bartender who rescues a discarded puppy from a garbage can, only to become the target of the dog's mentally unstable former owner, while simultaneously getting caught in a criminal conspiracy in a mob-controlled bar.

Barry Forshaw, author of Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction and The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction, has written what he hopes is a comprehensive survey of British Crime Film: Subverting the Social Order.

Fox Searchlight released an international trailer for the new film Hitchcock, based on Stephen Rebello’s book Alfred Hitchcock And The Making of Psycho. The picture opened LA’s recent AFI Festival.

TV

It appears that the rumored deal between Netflix and AMC to resurrect The Killing for a third season is close to becoming a reality. AMC cancelled the the mystery drama a few months ago, but the producers have been working behind the scenes to find a new home for the series.

NBC gave a full-season pickup to NBC’s freshman series Chicago Fire. The firefighter drama stars Taylor Kinney, Jesse Spencer, Eamonn Walker, Monica Raymund, Charlie Barnett and David Eigenberg.

TNT has cast Eion Bailey (ER, Once Upon a Time) as the male lead opposite Mira Sorvino in the drama pilot Trooper.

C. Thomas Howell, who plays abrasive cop Bill "Dewey" Dudek, is being promoted to regular status in TNT's police drama Southland. 

NBC released a promo for its upcoming murder mystery drama Deception. The show stars Meagan Good as Detective Joanna Locasto who returns home for the funeral of  friend and begins to uncover dark secrets and clues about why her friend's life was in danger. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

FX has unveiled a first look at its upcoming spy drama The Americans, which stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as two '80s-era KGB spies living undercover as a married American couple in Washington, D.C.

The FX parent company Fox also released a video trailer, this one for The Following, which stars Kevin Bacon as an ex-FBI agent recruited to recapture an escaped serial killer played by James Purefoy.

PODCASTS/VIDEOS

Author John Connolly, one of the editors of the new anthology Books to Die For, spoke with WCSH-TV about why the mystery novel enjoys such an enduring appeal and which books are the must-reads of the genre.

Tasha Alexander and Kim Harrison were the featured guest authors on the most recent Suspense Radio Online podcast.

THEATER

The Minnesota Opera has commissioned an opera from Pulitzer-winning composer Kevin Puts based on Richard Condon's 1959 Cold War thriller, The Manchurian Candidate. One of two film adaptations starred Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury in the tale of the son from a prominent US political family who's brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin.