MOVIES
Reese Witherspoon is developing a movie for New Line Cinema based on Ruth Ware’s mystery novel In a Dark, Dark Wood. The story centers on a reclusive writer who receives an invitation to a bachelorette party of her best friend from high school. But the party leads to intrigue when the writer wakes up in a hospital bed afterward, injured but alive, with hazy memories and the conviction someone is dead, prompting her to uncover secrets, reveal motives, and find answers.
Scottish production company Synchronicity Films has secured the film and TV rights to Graeme Macrae Burnet’s period crime thriller His Bloody Project, which was shortlisted for the UK’s prestigious Man Booker Prize. The psychological thriller tells the story of a brutal triple murder in a remote Scottish farming community in 1869 that leads to the arrest of 17-year-old Roddy Macrae. There's no question of Roddy’s guilt, but his fate hangs on one key question: is he insane?
Fox 2000 is closing a deal for screen rights to The Woman In The Window, a new novel with a lot of buzz that was written by A.J. Finn (a pseudonym for a book editor at a major publishing house, allegedly). The story is said to have elements of The Girl On The Train and Hitchcock’s Rear Window and is centered on a housebound woman with agoraphobia who witnesses a shocking act of violence by a neighbor and must confront what she saw or whether she has become unhinged.
The Scarface remake took a major step forward with The Sopranos writer Terence Winter joining the project. Following the 1932 and 1983 theatrical tales, the reboot also has Training Day director Antoine Fuqua at the helm.
Gravitas Ventures acquired the feature Courier-X, a conspiracy thriller about the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, marking the directorial debut of Thomas Gulamerian and starring Udo Kier as a former member of the East German Police.
Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Michael Pena, and Judi Dench have joined the all-star lineup for director Kenneth Branagh in the Murder On The Orient Express remake. The film is based on one of Christie’s best-known books, first published in 1934, which has Hercule Poirot investigating the death of an American businessman who is murdered aboard the famed train.
Viola Davis has been cast in New Regency's Widows, the heist thriller being directed by 12 Years A Slave helmer Steve McQueen and co-penned by McQueen and Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn. Based on a British miniseries, the plot centers on the aftermath of four armed robbers killed during a failed heist and their surviving widows who join forces and resolve to pull off the raid themselves.
Mel Gibson is in early negotiations to star in French filmmaker Benjamin Rocher’s indie action adventure Every Other Weekend. The story centers on a father who convinces his son he’s an experienced CIA spy, but in reality works in the agency’s IT department. When family secrets are spilled during a father-son trip in Paris, the duo find themselves in an actual life-threatening adventure. Gibson would play the role of the son’s grandfather, who in actuality is a superspy.
Jim Carrey's upcoming dramatic turn is the psychological thriller True Crimes, which has landed a premiere date at the Warsaw Film Festival on October 12. The movie is a U.S. and Poland collaboration that also features Polish actors in the tale of a murder in a small town in the south-western end of Pland, far from civilization. The film is based on a 2008 New Yorker article by David Grann about a murder investigation of a slain business man that turns to clues found in a book about an eerily similar crime.
Eddie Muller, the "Czar of Noir," will be in Key Largo October 12-16 to co-host this year's Humphrey Bogart Film Festival, along with Stephen Bogart, son of Bogie and Lauren Bacall. The festival will celebrate the 75th anniversary of John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941) and the 70th Anniversary of Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946), with both films screening during the event. (HT to Mystery Fanfare.)
And for fun, Pulp Curry takes a look at "10 of the best heist films you’ve never seen."
TELEVISION
The Italian Job is the latest in a series of movies being adapted for TV, after NBC landed a reboot of the 1969 Paramount film (and its subsequent 2003 remake). The story follows a make-shift family of expert criminals forced out of retirement when an opportunity arises to get their beloved "patriarch" out of jail. At the core of the dysfunctional family is Charlie Croker, a handsome and charming ex-con who tried to go straight, but like the rest of his crew, can’t resist the adrenaline rush of the high-stakes heist world.
CBS is developing Dr. Death, a drama series starring and executive produced by The Good Wife star Alan Cumming. The project is based on the upcoming book of the same name by James Patterson, which centers on a former CIA operative (Cumming) who has since built a "normal" life as a gifted professor and writer but is pulled back into his old life when the NYPD needs his help to stop a serial killer on the loose.
Artificial intelligence is a hot topic in Hollywood these days, with HBO rolling out its anticipated humanistic android drama Westworld. Fox is following the AI trend with a script commitment for the Jessica Alba-produced drama Girl 10, set in the very near future. The story revolves around Elle, one of only 10 synthetic humans in existence who is being investigated for murder while trying to stop an evil cabal from weaponizing the technology behind artificial intelligence.
NBC cancelled Aquarius, its summer Charles Manson drama starring David Duchovny as Detective Sam Hodiak who was tasked with investigating th
e disappearance of a teenaged girl (Emma Dumont), only to find out that she was with the Manson Family.
Mr. Robot's Gloria Reuben is teaming with Cathy Konrad’s Tree Line Film and Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Television to adapt Dean Koontz’s bestselling book Dark Rivers of the Heart for television. The psychological thriller centers on an ex-Marine, haunted by a tortured past, who is on the run with a mysterious, troubled woman who witnessed the murder of her husband and parents.
FX is moving ahead with Snowfall, giving a 10-episode series order to John Singleton’s drama inspired by the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles. The project has seen a revolving door of directors, producers, and cast members, but apparently the network is happy with the latest iteration. The story follows numerous characters on a violent collision course, including: a young street entrepreneur on a quest for power (Damson Idris); a Mexican wrestler caught up in a power struggle within a crime family (Sergio Peris-Mencheta); a CIA operative running from a dark past (Carter Hudson); and the self-possessed daughter of a Mexican crime lord (Emily Rios).
Universal Cable Productions signed a development deal with the Alfred Hitchcock estate to bring a re-imagining of his classic tales back to the small screen. In the works is Welcome to Hitchcock, described as "an inspired take on the master filmmaker’s unique brand of storytelling that encompassed such iconic stories as The Birds, Psycho and the popular television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
BBC Two has ordered the revenge thriller Paula from playwright/filmmaker Conor McPherson, with Denise Gough set to star alongside Tom Hughes in the three-part drama. Paula centers on the fallout in a young chemistry teacher’s life after her one-night stand with a handsome but dangerous man.
Television rights to LC Tyler’s comic crime Herring series have been bought by the producers of ITV’s Midsomer Murders. The books feature crime writer Ethelred Tressider and his agent, Elsie Thirkettle, and have twice won the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award for the best humorous crime novel of the year and have been shortlisted for other awards including the Edgars.
Criminal Minds’ Behavioral Analysis Unit is adding Damon Gupton (Empire) as a new series regular to help fill the void left by the abrupt departure of original star Thomas Gibson, though Gupton’s character will not be a direct replacement for Gibson’s Hotch, who led the BAU. Gupton will play Special Agent Stephen Walker from the Behavioral Analysis Program which is the counterintelligence division of the FBI. He’s a seasoned profiler who will bring his spy-hunting skill set to the BAU.
The USA Network thriller pilot The Sinner has signed Bill Pullman to star opposite the previously-cast Jessica Biel. The project is based on the best-selling book by Petra Hammesfahr and centers on a young mother who is overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage and commits a startling and very public act of violence for reasons she does not know. Pullman will play a sensitive, dogged detective who finds himself disturbed and uniquely fascinated by Biel’s Cora Tanner, the ordinary housewife who impulsively commits a violent crime.
Tiffany Hines (Bones) and Bailey Chase (Longmire) have joined the cast of Fox’s 24 franchise reboot 24: Legacy in recurring roles. The series, starring Straight Outta Compton's Corey Hawkins, chronicles a race against the clock to stop a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Chicago P.D. star Jon Seda, who plays Intelligence Unit detective Antonio Dawson, will be leaving the series to join the latest spinoff in the Chicago franchise, the upcoming Chicago Justice. On the legal series, Seda will reprise his character who will now be an investigator for the DA’s office and partnered with fellow investigator Lori Nagle, played by Joelle Carter.
The BBC released Sherlock series four official titles for the first two episodes, which offer up some hints and teasers for the next installments, set to air in 2017.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Sue Grafton was a guest on The Story Blend podcast discussing her "alphabet mystery series," writing insights, how to tap into your own well of darkness as you write, and why mystery writers are the “magicians of fiction.”
The latest Crime & Science Radio podcast featured Jeffrey Calandra talking about Iris, the FBI’s only electronic-sniffing dog.
Author Jenny Milchman, the host of the Next Steps podcast, spoke with Brian Panowich, the winner of this year's Thriller award for Best First novel, and debut author J Todd Scott to talk about their writing process and what sets apart an award-winning release from all the other great novels out there.
THEATER
Royal Shakespeare Company actor Miles Richardson and former EastEnders soap star James Alexandrou will lead the cast for Giles Croft's revival of Anthony Shaffer's thriller Sleuth at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leed. Richardson plays rich and successful mystery writer Andrew Wyke, whose obsession with playing games is in danger of losing him everything, especially when he lures his wife's lover (Alexandrou's Milo), to his country house to take part in a specially created challenge. The production runs through October 15.
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