Media Murder for Monday

Here's your latest crime-related news about upcoming movies, television shows, podcasts, theatre, and more.

MOVIES

Liu Lu (currenty starring as Watson in CBS' Elementary) is set to star in Snakehead, a New York-set drama about the international underworld of human smuggling. She'll play a Chinese immigrant mentored in the business of human smuggling by the powerful bosses—called Snakeheads—and rises to the top of Chinatown’s smuggling business.

The biopic crime drama The Godmother has rounded out its cast with Jon Bernthal (The Wolf of Wall Street), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), Oscar Jaenada (The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) and Mehdi Dehbi (A Most Wanted Man). The film stars Zeta-Jones as the real-life infamous Columbian cocaine drug lord Griselda Blanco.

Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul plays a morally burdened drone pilot in a teaser poster for Eye in the Sky, Gavin Hood‘s modern warfare thriller set for a 2015 release.

TELEVISION

ABC is developing Wire In The Blood, an adaptation of the British psychological crime drama created by Scottish suspense novelist Val McDermid. The story follows detective Elizabeth Chase who recruits the help of unconventional clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill to track down a serial killer.

TNT has given a 10-episode series order to action drama Agent X starring Sharon Stone, with a premiere date in the second half of 2015. Agent X centers on John Case (Jeff Hephner), a top secret agent hidden from the view of the public – and even from the President – who is trained and ready to serve, deployed only at the careful discretion of the Vice President (Stone). Gerald McRaney is also in the cast, playing the Chief Steward of the Vice President’s mansion and the keeper of its many secrets.

ABC picked up the hour-long crime drama Nola Hart, which centers on a woman who wakes up in an airport with mnesia and hires a dysfunctional father-son detective agency to find out who she is. "When to her own surprise she shows near-genius detective skills, the guys hire the woman to help them as they take on her ever-deepening missing person case."

AMC is developing the espionage thriller miniseries The Night Manager, an adaptation of the 1993 John le Carré novel. Tom Hiddleston will play a former British soldier given incriminating evidence about the crimes of a gun runner on the black market (played by Hugh Laurie) and goes on an undercover sting to try and take him down.

TNT has given a pilot order to the supernatural crime drama Breed, from writer/novelist John Scott Shepherd (Life or Something Like It), director Scott Winant (Fargo) and producer Nicky Weinstock. The story deals with a series of brutal murders in the Pacific Northwest and the mysterious race of creatures who may be committing them. A gifted, but troubled detective is forced to enlist the help of a powerful and alluring female assassin to track down the killers.

Taylor Kitsch confirmed he's been added to the cast for season two of True Detective, joining Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn. HBO also announced other actors recently hired for the show, including Kelly Reilly, Abigail Spencer, Michael Irby and Leven Rambin.

Hayley Kiyoko (The Fosters) has been cast as a regular opposite Patricia Arquette, Bow Wow, and James Van Der Beek in in the CBS midseason drama series CSI: Cyber. She'll play a rookie techie working in the Cyber Crime Division.

CBS has given full-season orders to all of its new fall dramas including Scorpion, NCIS: New Orleans, Madam Secretary and Stalker.  

NBC announced it was giving a full-season order for The Mysteries of Laura, starring Debra Lessing as a New York City homicide detective struggling to balance her demanding job with her hectic life at home.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the BBC's production of the Miss Marple series by Agatha Christie starring actress Joan Hickson, BBC Home Entertainment released a brand new, completely restored high-definition version of four episodes (with more hopefully to come).

If you're a Bogie fan, Reel TV is offering a Humphrey Bogart tribute of sorts during November, airing The Caine Mutiny, The Big Sleep, and The Maltese Falcoln on Saturday nights.

FX released a teaser trailer for the sixth season of Justified, the series based on Elmore Leonard's stories and his literary creation, Raylan (played by Timothy Olyphant). The show starts its final season in January.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

The latest Crime & Science Radio fetured hosts DP Lyle and Jan Burke in a Q&A with forensic anthropologist Marilyn London, discussing what we can learn from skeletal remains, what forensic anthropologists do at the scene, where remains are found, and more.

BBC Radio is featuring a radio adaptation of Conan Doyle's Holmes story "The Hound of the Baskervilles" wih Roger Rees as Sherlock Holmes and Crawford Logan as Dr. Watson.

WAMC's Roundtable Program had a segment on "Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts Of Edgar Allan Poe."

HarperCollins has launched a new global podcast network, HarperCollins Presents, showcasing authors talking about books, inspiration, the creative process
and more. The podcasts will include Patricia Cornwell (The Kay Scarpetta series) and Alexander McCall Smith (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series). The shows are available via iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher.

WCSH-TV interviewed Kate Flora, a former Maine assistant attorney-general who has published 14 mystery and crime books, most which involve Maine, including the non-fiction work Finding Amy, a 2007 Edgar nominee that she co-wrote with a Portland deputy police chief.