Media Murder for Monday

Here's your new wrap-up of the latest in crime drama news:

MOVIES

DreamWorks Pictures picked up the spec screenplay Bad Cop, Bad Cop written by Fortune Feimster, Brian Jarvis and Jim Freeman, with Feimster attached to star. Scott Stuber’s Bluegrass Films is also in talks to produce as what is being billed as an R-rated action buddy comedy about two hapless cops who stumble on a case that exposes a conspiracy of corruption in their own precinct.

Liam Neeson is in discussions to star as Viola Davis’ husband in Steve McQueen’s Widows, a heist movie about four armed robbers who are killed during a caper gone wrong, leaving their surviving spouses to finish the job. McQueen is writing the script along with Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn.

Mission: Impossible 6 has found its second female lead in the form of The Crown's Vanessa Kirby, although her role hasn't been announced officially. She is the latest addition to a supporting cast that includes Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Rebecca Ferguson. The project is currently scheduled to hit theaters in the summer of 2018.

Sakina Jaffrey, a series regular on NBC’s new drama Timeless, is in final talks to join the cast of Fox’s Red Sparrow, the Francis Lawrence-directed spy thriller that stars Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts and Jeremy Irons. Based on Jason Matthews’ novel, the feature follows Russian intelligence officer Dominika Egorova (Lawrence), who is drafted against her will to become a Sparrow, a trained seductress. Jaffrey will play Trish Forsythe, station commander of the CIA office in Helsinki, Finland.

The 13th annual Los Angeles International Women's Film Festival will take place March 23-26 at LA Live Regal Cinemas. Celebrating the cinematic achievements of women from around the world, the event kicks off with an Opening Night Gala screening of The Drowning, directed by Bette Gordon and starring Julia Stiles, Josh Charles and Avan Jogia. The film, based on the novel Border Crossing by Booker Prize-winner Pat Barker, is a psychological thriller that explores shifting identities as a psychiatrist faces the past, present and future—while treating a young man convicted of a murder when he was just 11 years old.  

Netflix shared the first teaser trailer for Will Smith and Joel Edgerton’s upcoming film Bright, an R-rated cop procedural that is set in a world populated not only with humans but also fantastical, mythical creatures. The story follows a human cop (Smith) who is forced to work with an Orc (Edgerton) to find a weapon everyone is prepared to kill for. Noomi Repace, Edgar Ramírez, Ike Barinholtz and Kenneth Choi also co-star.

TELEVISION

Mick Finlay’s upcoming Sherlock-inspired novel Arrowood has been snapped up for a television adaptation. The story is set in the shady London backstreets of 1895 and centers on a private investigator named Arrowood, who despises Holmes, his wealthy clientele, and his showy forensic approach to crime. Arrowood is the one the underclass turn to when crimes happen in densely-populated south London, where crimes are sleazier and Holmes rarely visits.

The BBC is moving ahead with the long-gestating political thriller The Club, from Adam Price and House of Cards author Lord Michael Dobbs. The project is being produced by the company behind Broadchurch, with the the BBC believed to be looking at the latest draft of a pilot script for the Westminster-set drama.

Entourage star Jeremy Piven has signed on to star in Wisdom of the Crowd, CBS’ drama pilot from former The Good Wife writer-executive producer Ted Humphrey and Keshet Studios. Written by Humphrey and directed by Adam Davidson, the project is based on the Israeli format of the same name and centers on Jeffrey Tanner (Piven), a charismatic tech innovator who creates a cutting-edge crowd-sourcing hub to solve his own daughter’s murder, as well as revolutionizing crime solving in San Francisco.

Peter Fonda is set for a key role opposite Abbie Cornish and John Krasinski in Amazon’s straight-to-series drama Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Fonda will guest star in a potentially recurring role as Cathy Mueller’s (Cornish) father, with Mueller set as a love interest for Ryan. The project is a reinvention with a modern sensibility of the iconic Tom Clancy hero and centers on Jack Ryan (Krasinski), an up-and-coming CIA analyst thrust into a dangerous field assignment for the first time.

The USA network's drug cartel drama Queen of the South has added Ryan O’Nan, both as a cast member and a story editor, in Season 2. O’Nan will recur in multiple episodes as King George, a high-rolling Texas weed smuggler who will help Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga) and Camila Vargas (Veronica Falcon) build their empire.

Canada's CTV has made its first-ever order for consecutive seasons of a Canadian drama by handing a second- and third-season pick-up to the crime drama Cardinal, starring The Killing alum Billy Campbell and Karine Vanasse. The second and third cycles of Cardinal will be shot in northern Ontario and once again feature Campbell's dogged detective and Vanasse, his partner, a shrewd investigator from a small town’s French-speaking community.

USA Network has opted not to order a second season of crime thriller anthology Eyewitness, the series from Shades of Blue creator Adi Hasak and adapted from the Norwegian drama Øyevitne. The serialized murder story was designed as a companion to USA’s venerable off-network crime drama procedural Law & Order: SVU on Sunday. Despite solid reviews and a strong performance by Julianne Nicholson, the series, which got very little promotion, did not hold as much of the SVU audience as the network had hoped.  

A new teaser trailer was released for the drama series Mindhunter slated to hit Netflix in October. Based on the book Mind Hunter: Inside FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas, the project revolves around two FBI agents in 1979 who interview imprisoned serial killers as a way to solve ongoing investigations. The agents will be played by Jonathan Groff (Hamilton, Looking) as Holden Ford and Holt McCallany (Sully, Lights Out) as Bill Tench. Anna Torv, Hannah Gross, and Cotter Smith will also appear in the series, with David Fincher and Charlize Theron executive producing.

Michael Connelly is the Turner Classic Movies Guest Programmer for March. Connelly, the author of numerous mysteries and crime fiction (notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch), has chosen four films from the 1970s that he saw as a teenager and considered to be "all part of the process I went through" to become a writer in the hard-boiled tradition. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

A Stab in the Dark is back with its first podcast of the new year. Paul Hirons fills in for regular host Mark Billingham to take a closer look at the Nordic Noir phenomenon and also the links between Scandinavian and Nordic crime fiction and drama with Britain.  

On the latest Crime and Science Radio: "Dangerous Instincts": An Interview with Senior FBI Profiler (Ret) Mary Ellen O’Toole Ph.D.

New Zealand's The Coast podcast chatted with author Gregg Hurwitz about his new Evan Smoak thriller.

Noir on the Radio welcomed crime fiction author Rob Pierce to talk about his novels and short stories. Pierce is the editor of Swill Magazine, an editorial consultant with All Due Respect Books, and co-editor at Flash Fiction Offensive.

On the Crime Cafe podcast, author Debbi Mack interviewed thriller author James P. Carse, a retired religion/philosophy professor, whose first crime novel, PhDeath: the Puzzler Murders will be published later this year.

The Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast had hosts Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste talking about the things that anger readers the most, as well a discussion of James Ellroy, and more. The special guest was Mason Cross who discussed his Carter Blake series.

THEATER

Calgary, Canada's Vertigo Theatre will present the "hilarious, fast-paced romp through the world of espionage," Our Man in Havana, beginning March 11 with a run through April 9. The story centers on Jim Wormold, a British expatriate living in 1950’s Cuba who is struggling to pay for his daughter’s extravagant lifestyle. When the British Secret Service offers him a plum position as their 'man in Havana," he literally can’t afford to say no.