AWARDS
In the annual People's Choice Awards, The Girl on the Train was declared Favorite Thriller Movie; Priyanka Chopra won for Favorite Dramatic TV Actress (Quantico); the Favorite TV Crime Drama went to Criminal Minds, while Mark Harmon won for Favorite Male Actor in a TV Crime Drama (NCIS) and Jennifer Lopez for Favorite Female Actor in a TV Crime Drama (Shades of Blue); and The Favorite Premium TV Series nod went to Orange is the New Black.
Meanwhile, the Oscar Nominations are scheduled to be announced tomorrow - too late for today's blog, but I'll cover it next week. You can catch the updates via the official Oscars.org website as they happen.
MOVIES
After launching three franchises between Barbershop, Fantastic Four, and Ride Along, director Tim Story is set to tackle a fourth by signing on to helm New Line’s reboot of Shaft. Richard Roundtree starred in Gordon Parks’ original 1971 movie as John Shaft, a smooth-talking detective hired by a drug lord to find his kidnapped daughter, while Samuel L. Jackson picked up the mantle as Shaft’s nephew in John Singleton's 2000 remake.
Adam Brody and Sophie Nelisse (The Book Thief) are set to star in Evan Morgan’s The Kid Detective from Brightlight Pictures and Myriad Pictures. Written and directed by Morgan, the feature is described as "a darkly satirical murder mystery based on the demoralization of a wholesome American icon." A once-celebrated kid detective (Brody), now 29, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity until a naïve client (Nelisse) brings him his first "adult" case – to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.
Orange Is the New Black actor Pablo Schreiber has signed to star opposite Gerard Butler in STX's heist thriller Den of Thieves. Christian Gudegast is set to direct from the original screenplay he co-wrote with Paul Sheuring, which focuses on $120 million that is taken out of circulation on a daily basis by the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve and a notorious crew of robbers that plan the ultimate heist right under the noses of the city's best cops. Butler will play the head of a team of agents looking to stop the heist, while Schreiber will play the leader of the bank robbers. Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and O'Shea Jackson are also in the cast.
The growing list of characters introduced into the Ocean's Eight ensemble cast has expanded further with the addition of British actor Richard Armitage (The Hobbit, Alice Through The Looking Glass), although details of his character are being kept under wraps.
A trailer was released for the indie thriller City of Tiny Lights, written by Patrick Neate and based on his own 2005 novel of same name. Riz Ahmed plays Londoner Tommy Akhtar, a private eye who gets caught up in a dangerous case surrounding a high-class prostitute.
A new trailer was released for the upcoming John Wick sequel with Keanu Reeves returning as legendary hitman John Wick, who is forced back out of retirement when a former associate plots to seize control of a shadowy international assassins' guild.
TELEVISION
Stephen Susco, the writer behind hit thrillers The Grudge and The Grudge 2, has been set to adapt Fiona Cummins’ upcoming debut novel Rattle for television as a six-part series. The story centers on a sinister bone collector who has a macabre obsession with his museum of medical oddities and when the time comes for a fresh harvest, it’s down to Detective Etta Fitzroy to hunt down the psychopath before he can add to his collection.
ABC has given a new pilot order to the prolific and successful Shondaland Productions. The untitled legal drama will be set in the Southern District of New York Federal Court (a/k/a "The Mother Court") and follow brand-new lawyers working for both the defense and the prosecution as they handle the most high profile and high stakes cases in the country – all as their personal lives intersect.
ABC has given pilot orders to two more drama projects, including Deception, an FBI crime drama procedural from Chuck co-creator Chris Fedak, magician David Kwong, Blindspot creator Martin Gero, and Berlanti TV. The drama centers on superstar magician Cameron Black, who has only one place to turn to practice his art of deception, illusion, and influence after his career is ruined—the FBI. He’ll become the world’s first consulting illusionist, helping the government solve crimes that defy explanation, and trap criminals and spies by using deception.
Jessica Biel will star in and executive produce a new anthology series titled The Sinner for USA Network that's based on Petra Hammesfahr’s book of the same name. The first season/installment of the close-ended series follows a young mother (Biel) who, when overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage, commits a startling act of violence and to her horror has no idea why. The event draws in an investigator (Bill Pullman) who finds himself obsessed with uncovering the woman’s buried motive. Together they travel a harrowing journey into the depths of her psyche and the violent secrets hidden in her past.
Jharrel Jerome (Moonlight) has joined the cast of David E. Kelley's Mr. Mercedes series, the adaptation of Stephen King's 2014 novel of the same name. The drama follows a demented killer (Penny Dreadful's Harry Treadaway) who taunts a retired police detective (Brendan Gleeson) with a series of lurid letter
s and emails, forcing the ex-cop to undertake a private, and potentially felonious, crusade to bring the killer to justice before he is able to strike again. Jerome will play Jerome Robinson, a high school student who does yard work for the detective and helps with technical support.
Cold Case Files’ True Crime Series is getting a reboot on the A&E Network, which will premiere the 10-episode series beginning February 27, with Danny Glover as narrator.
TNT has given a sixth-season pickup to its popular crime-drama Major Crimes, although the order is for 13 episodes, down from recent years. The drama centers on a special squad within the LAPD that deals with high-profile or particularly sensitive crimes, led by Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell).
NBC will broadcast a preview of Dick Wolf’s Chicago Justice, the newest installment of the producer’s successful Chicago franchise, on Wednesday, March 1. The preview will immediately follow a crossover event between Chicago Fire at 8 p.m. and Chicago P.D. at 9 p.m. that is set to introduce a storyline that seamlessly flows into Chicago Justice.
For those Blacklist fans who are wondering how the spinoff show is going to work since one of the series' main characters, Tom Keen, will be making the transition between The Blacklist and The Blacklist: Redemption, worry no more. On February 23, NBC is giving the two shows a two-hour block so that one show will sign off and the next one will sign on afterward, and Tom Keen will simply walk from one episode into the next. The show also confirmed there are plans to keep Ryan Eggold's character Tom Keen on the flagship series, so even if The Blacklist: Redemption doesn't work out over the long haul, he will still be around.
The ratings for ABC's FBI series Quantico have been falling, and showrunner Joshua Safran has revealed the show is making a big change to cater to its viewers: Quantico is getting rid of its flashbacks because viewers weren't huge fans of the device during Season 1.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Thriller author Rebecca Forster was one of the latest to join in the Female Crime Fiction Writers Month celebration at Authors on the Air.
The Two Crime Writers And A Microphone podcast discussed Mark Billingham's forthcoming new Thorne novel, Martyn Waites's return to his usual name, and the crime genre. This week's special guest is debut novelist Joseph Knox.
THEATER
Murder, Margaret and Me is set to open at Norwich theatre in the UK with a run through January 28. It tells the story of an unlikely friendship that develops between crime writer Agatha Christie and actress Margaret Rutherford during the filming of the first Miss Marple film. "The play is about the process of creating and the conflicts of artistic creation. A question of ownership of character," said Phillip Meeks, the play’s writer. "But the play also pays homage to Margaret Rutherford. It’s half a biographical play."
Casting has been announced for the world premiere stage adaptation at Manchester's HOME theater of Paul Auster's City of Glass, marking the first time Auster's 1985 novel about a crime writer has been adapted for the stage. Mark Edel-Hunt and Chris New will play writer Daniel Quinn, who receives a mysterious phone call in the middle of the night. He is later hired by a strange woman called Virginia to protect her and her husband from her sociopath father-in-law. City of Glass will run from March 9-18 at HOME then move to Lyric Hammersmith from April 26 to 13 May.
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