Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Brie Larson has signed on to star in the indie drama Room, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, playing a woman kidnapped as a teenager and held captive for years in a tiny room with her 5-year-old son Jack. Emma Donoghue adapted the script from her own 2010 bestseller inspired by a real-life 2008 case.

Screenwriters Mark and Brian Gunn (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), are writing the script for Timecop, a remake of the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme time travel action movie, where time travel is regulated by a police force.

DreamWorks has optioned Anders Roslund and Stefan Thunberg's Swedish crime novel Made in Sweden, scheduled for publication in May in Europe (with U.S. publication at a later date). The story follows the true story of the largest wave of bank robberies in Sweden's history, pulled off by three brothers and their childhood best friend.

Sony Pictures is nearing a deal for the rights to Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, an adaptation of the financial thriller novel by Michael Lewis, published March 31.

Noomi Rapace is in negotiations to star in the spy thriller Unlocked, directed by Mikael Hafstrom. She will play a CIA interrogator duped into getting a terrorist to provide key information to the wrong side, putting her in the center of a plot to launch a biological attack in London.

Production on the indie courtroom drama The Whole Truth has been put on hold after star Daniel Craig dropped out one week before production began. Craig was set to play an attorney tasked with defending a teen boy who allegedly murdered his wealthy father.

Screen Gems is producing the thriller Padre, based on a  a spec script by Mike Maples and described as being in the tone of No Country for Old Men and A History of Violence. The story centers on a priest with a dark past on a quest for revenge against a group of thugs that left him for dead.  

A teaser trailer was released for A Most Wanted Man, a filmbased on John le Carré's novel about a Chechen Muslim who illegally immigrates to Hamburg and gets caught in the international war on terror. The project was one of the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman's last films.

Sony Pictures released a trailer for the sequel to the comedy police procedural 21 Jump street, titled 22 Jump Street. In this outing, partners Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) head off to do an undercover mission at a local college.

TELEVISION

The UK's BAFTA TV Awards 2014 nominations were announced last week and include several nods to crime dramas Southcliffe, Ripper Street, Broadchurch, The Fall, The Great Train Robbery, and Top of the Lake. (Hat tip to It's a Crime.)

Law & Order: SVU is promoting Donal Logue to a recurring role playing Lieutenant Declan Murphy, who takes over from Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) as acting commander of the New York Special Victims Unit. The show has also hired Bradley Whitford to guest story in an upcoming episode, along with Ann Curry and Geraldo Rivera playing themselves.

Weinstein has acquired the rights to the crime drama series Gommora from Beta Film, which is based on the best-selling novel by Roberto Saviano about the Neapolitan crime organization Camorra.

The crime series Trapped, from Baltasar Kormakur's production company, has been given a 10-episode series order from Icelandic public broadcaster RUV. The show is set on remote island where a blizzard cuts off the town from the outside world before police can arrive to investigate the discovery of a man's body.

Mia Kirshner (The L Word) and  Waleed Zuaiter (Revolution, Homeland) will have recurring roles on Netflix’s untitled psychological thriller drama from the creators of Damages. The  13-episode series follows a close-knit family of four adult siblings whose secrets and scars are revealed when the black sheep brother returns.

A&E renewed Bates Motel for a third season, with production beginning in the Fall. The show stars Freddie Highmore as a young Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga as Norman's mother.

Cobie Smulders, who played S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill on the big screen, will reprise the character in the Tuesday, April 29 episode of ABC TV’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Omnimystery News reported that French pay-TV service Canal Plus has given a 10-episode order to the UK-based crime drama Spotless, about a man in the crime scene cleaning business whose brother draws him into the deadly dynamics of organized crime.

TNT has ordered a series based on Noah Wyle's The Librarian movie trilogy, about an ancient organization beneath the Metropolitan Public Library dedicated to protecting an unknowing world from the secret, magical reality hidden all around. The cast includes Rebecca Romijn, Wyle, John Larroquette, Christian Kane, Lindy Boot, John Kim, Bob Newhart, and Jane Curtin.

Emily Bergl (Shameless) has landed a guest-starring role on Elementary playing an alternative tattoo artist who becomes a suspect in her ex-husband's murder—the same husband who was once tasked with keeping an eye on Sherlock Holmes.

UKTV’s pay channel Watch bought UK rights to the drama series Crisis, which stars Gillian Anderson and Delmot Mulroney. The story line follows the abduction of several children of Washington D.C.’s most powerful players, including the president’s son.

Fox TV released the first full-length trailer of its limited series 24: Live Another Day, which premieres May 5.

PODCASTS/VIDEOS/RADIO

This week's Crime and Science Radio, hosted by DP Lyle and Jan Burke, is titled "When Disaster Hits; Naming The Dead: An Interview With NTSB's Paul Sledzik." It takes a look at how forensic science works following the aftermath of disasters such as plane crashes, floods, hurricanes and other events that result in mass fatalities.

THEATER

Cast members from A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder will join the show's writers for a special May 11 discussion at the 92Y in New York City. Based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank by Roy Horniman, the muiscal follows a trail of heirs, family money, and homicide.