Media Murder for Monday

Welcome to the start o'the week and the latest crime drama roundup:

MOVIES

Focus Features has picked up film rights to the upcoming novel To Die in Vienna by Kevin Wignall and attached Jake Gyllenhaal to star in its movie adaptation to be titled Welcome to Vienna. Gyllenhaal is set to play Freddie, a civilian surveillance contractor who interrupts a break-in at his apartment while he's spying on a Chinese academic in Vienna. The intruder escapes, but then comes back and tries to kill Freddie, making the American contractor a hunted man. Freddie's only hope for survival is that his pursuer doesn't know the past he’s running away from.

Anonymous Content has acquired screen rights to Foe, the upcoming thriller novel by Iain Reid. The novel is set slightly in the future, after severe climate change has ruined the farmlands across the north and created devastating fires that has scarred the landscape. A farmer and his wife live a solitary life, struggling on one of the last remaining farms, where they raise cattle and harvest grain, until a knock on the door changes things. A stranger tells the farmer he has been selected to travel far from the farm, with a group of settlers looking to relocate. Arrangements have been made so that when he leaves, his wife won’t miss him because a "replacement" has been arranged, who’ll join the wife on the farm while he’s gone.

Sony Pictures is in the early stages of mounting a remake of the 1985 thriller Jagged Edge as a star vehicle for Halle Berry. Directed by Richard Marquand from a Joe Eszterhas script, the original starred Glenn Close, Jeff Bridges and Robert Loggia, the latter of whom got an Oscar nomination. In the story, after a San Francisco heiress is brutally murdered in her remote beach house, her dashing newspaper publisher husband Jack is accused of committing the gruesome crime. He hires lawyer Teddy Barnes to defend him, and their chemistry spills into an affair. Even though the lawyer is falling in love, can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t quite right with the case, with the killer sending anonymous notes pecked out on an old typewriter. Is Jack the key to a happy future for the lawyer if she can get him acquitted in a courtroom, or is he a sociopath?

Ray Liotta has been cast in the indie film Cutman for producer-director Michael Mailer (Blind). The script, written by Tiffany Heath (Cut Her Out), follows a retired boxer who is dying of cancer and working also as an enforcer for various low-level mobsters. He is haunted by the death of his "cutman" (the guys in the corners during a boxing match who make sure the fighter is taken care of physically) and just wants to die in peace, before he meets a junkie and her daughter as they all search for meaning and revenge. 

The cast for Mary Hannon’s upcoming drama about the Charles Manson Murder trials, Charlie Says, also continues to grow. X-Files star Annabeth Gish has now joined the film to play Virginia Carlson, head of the California Institute for Women. Gish joins cast members Matt Smith as the notorious cult leader, Suki Waterhouse, Odessa Young, and Chace Crawford in the upcoming film from American Psycho director Mary Hannon. Written by Guinevere Turner the film will focus on three young women who were sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in the Sharon Tate murder case when the death penalty was lifted. Virginia Carlson (Gish) pursues a young graduate student, Karlene Faith (Merritt Wever), to work with the incarcerated Manson girls.

For those of you in the southern California area, don't forget that the Los Angeles long-running Noir City: Hollywood film festival returns to the Egyptian Theatre for the 15th year beginning April 13th. This year's event features a fusion of films shot on the streets of Los Angeles, some rarities, and an appearance by the master of noir crime fiction, James Ellroy.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The 2018 British Academy Television Awards Nominations, or BAFTAs, announced nominations in the various categories last week. The BBC police procedural Line of Duty and Peaky Blinders, (which follows the exploits of the Shelby crime family), were both finalists for Best TV Drama; Jack Rowan was nominated for Best Actor for his role in Born to Kill as a seemingly ordinary 16-year-old who appears to harboring secret psychopathic tendencies; the Best Actress nods included Molly Windsor, nominated for her role in Three Girls, which deals with child sex trafficking, Sinead Keenan, for the murder drama Little Boy Blue, and Thandie Newton for Line of Duty. For all the finalists, head on over to the official BAFTA website.

Top Of The Lake and Lion producer See Saw Films has picked up TV rights to Lucy Foley’s upcoming murder mystery novel The Hunting Party (pre-empted in a strong six-figure deal in December 2017 and slated for hardback publication in 2019). The plot of the Scottish highlands-set murder mystery unfolds over New Year’s Eve as a tight-knit group of Oxford university alumni celebrate in the impressive wilderness of the Loch Corrin Estate. In the wild terrain the group reminisce, go deer stalking, and hide friendship-destroying secrets; secrets that set a dangerous sequence of events in motion, culminating with a broken body in the snow. Best known for her sweeping wartime historical fiction, The Hunting Party sees Foley make her crime debut.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s production outfit SunnyMarch has pre-empted the TV rights to Ambrose Parry’s (a collaboration between author Chris Brookmyre and consultant anaesthetist Marisa Haetzman) upcoming novel, The Way Of All Flesh. The book is the first in a new historical series set in the medical world of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1840s and based on historical figures. Medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant professor of midwifery, Dr. James Young Simpson, at Simpson’s unusual clinic on Queen Street, where patients range from the richest to the poorest. There, Raven meets Sarah Fisher, officially housemaid and unofficially clinical assistant to Dr. Simpson, determined to improve her station in life. After a string of mysterious deaths in the city, Raven and Sarah are propelled into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh’s underworld, where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to make it out alive.

More casting news for the second season of HBO's Emmy-winning limited series Big Little Lies: Kathryn Newton, Robin Weigert, Merrin Dungey, and Sarah Sokolovic are set to return and Crystal Fox (The Haves and the Have Nots) and Mo McRae (Den of Thieves) have also joined the project. They join previously announced returning cast members Nicole Kidman as Celeste Wright, Reese Witherspoon as Madeline Martha Mackenzie, Adam Scott as Ed MacKenzie, Laura Dern as Renata Klein, Shailene Woodley as Jane, Zoë Kravitz as Bonnie Carlson. Previously announced Meryl Streep joins Season 2 as Mary Louise Wright, along with Douglas Smith as Corey Brockfield.

Hustle and Life on Mars creator Tony Jordan is spearheading a 12-part Gomorrah-esque drama for Eastern European broadcast group Antenna. The crime drama is titled Besa and will tell the story of the Albanian mafia – one of the most secretive and most feared criminal networks in the world. Jordan has written the show with a team of local writers and it will be shot on location across south East Europe for a September debut.

Fargo and The Punisher helmer Dearbhla Walsh is to direct Channel 4’s period espionage epic Jerusalem, marking her first return to British television in three years. The six-part series stars Shape of Water’s Michael Stuhlbarg, as well as Matt Lauria, Emma Appleton, and Luke Treadaway in the story set in the aftermath of WWII, when Britain was struggling to define itself in a new world order. Appleton plays Feef Symonds, a bold and ambitious 20-something woman who joins the Civil Service in 1945, just as Attlee’s Labour party sweeps to victory, while Lauria stars as her American lover Peter and Stuhlbarg plays fellow American and zealot Rowe. Feef agrees to spy on her own government for the Americans, who are determined to make sure England’s burgeoning Socialist ambitions don’t play into Soviet hands, quickly learning that no one is what they seem. 

Apparently, some fans aren't happy that the BBC changed the killer for the network's dramatization of Agatha Christie's Ordeal by Innocence. But even the experts don't agree on this approach; Christie biographer Laura Thompson said: "Changing the identity of the murderer, however good for publicity, is a bit much" while Christie expert Dr. Jamie Bernthal-Hooker said the changes "could bring the original work to a whole new audience."

Last week, we saw the passing of Steven Bochco, whose name became synomyous with TV crime dramas, including Columbo, McMillan & Wife, Bay City Blues, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, Murder One, and Murder in the First. His work helped define the modern TV drama, especially the crime drama genre, and helped him win 10 primetime Emmys, another 15 wins from other organizations including the Edgars and Writers Guild of America, and 49 nominations from various media organizations. Bochco was 74.

Appropriately, the New York Times listed "11 Great Foreign Police Shows to Stream Tonight" to add to your watch list.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday chatted with Jo Nesbo, the Norwegian author widely celebrated as the king of Nordic Noir, who was tasked with re-imagining Macbeth for a 21st-century audience as part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series.

Novelist Nathan Ripley, whose real name is Naben Ruthnum, spoke with CBC Radio to explain why he adopted an alias for his debut crime thriller Find You in the Dark and what it says about the ways writers of South Asian descent are stereotyped in the publishing industry.

The featured guests on the latest Suspense Radio edition included Rob Leininger (the Mortimer Angel private eye series), Charles Salzberg (known for his Henry Swann detective novel series), and K.J. Howe (author of a series with Thea Paris, a kidnap and ransom specialist).

Crime Cafe host Debbi Mack welcomed translator and crime fiction publisher Anne Trager, whose latest project is Minced, Marinated, and Murdered authored by French writers Noel Balen and Vanessa Barrot.

The Spybrary podcast had a field report from the inaugural Spy Con in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Crime Syndicate podcast caught up with authors E.A. Aymar and Sarah M. Chen to discuss the novel in stories they edited and contributed to, The Night of the Flood, as well as read an excerpt from their own contribution.

In the third episode of Case Notes, we learned what happens when violinist Min Kym's instrument was stolen - a Stradivarius worth £1.2m ($1.7m U.S. dollars).

The latest Meet the Thriller Author spoke with David E. Berens, a Knoxville-based author who writes a series about Florida-based private eye, Troy Bodean.

THEATER

Murder! at The Strand, an immersive theatrical who-dun-it, is coming to Marietta, Georgia's historic theater for a limited run April 12-15. Using all of The Strand—including its 500-seat auditorium and proscenium stage—this interactive, world-premiere event challenges the audience to identify the true story behind a nefarious crime and the true criminal with a nefarious motive. Eight "celebrity victims" will meet their demise over the course of the nights. Created by director and playwright Corey Bradberry and escape room designer Jeremy Ledbetter, this 75-minute interactive experience will invite patrons to take on the roles of audience members, witnesses to a crime and ultimately investigators following clues, interacting with the actors and examining the space to identify the culprit.