MOVIES
Imagine Entertainment won a bidding competition for screen rights to the upcoming Rob Hart novel, The Warehouse, as a directing vehicle for Ron Howard. The story is set in a near-future America ravaged by political strife and climate change, where an online retail giant named Cloud brands itself a global savior but hides a dark truth. Two of its employees, one in security and the other a spy, meet and fall in love, but their relationship is threatened by the deadly nature of the spy’s mission and the all-powerful mega-corporation they both work for. Hart is the author of the Ash McKenna private detective series and is also the publisher of Mysterious Press.com.
One of the hot properties at Cannes next week, which is also expected to grab a rights bidding competition, is the large-scale espionage film 355 that Simon Kinberg will direct with an all-star international cast of Jessica Chastain, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, and Lupita Nyong’o. They’ll play international agents in a grounded, edgy action thriller that aims to alter a male-dominated genre with a true female ensemble, in the style of spy franchises The Bourne Identity, Mission: Impossible, and James Bond.
IFC Films has acquired the U.S. rights to The Catcher Was a Spy, starring Paul Rudd, Sienna Miller, Jeff Daniels, Guy Pearce, and Paul Giamatti. Directed by Ben Lewin and written by Robert Rodat, the film is adapted from the WWII-set non-fiction bestseller by Nicholas Davidoff and is based on the true story of Major League Baseball player Moe Berg, who joined the U.S. in its wartime efforts to defeat the Nazis. But once he ascertains how close the Nazis are to building an atomic bomb, he has to make the life-or-death decision that will impact the rest of humanity.
Number 37, described as a Hitchcockian South African crime thriller, is heading to theaters in the U.S. after Dark Star Pictures picked up all North American rights. The film is the directorial debut of Nosipho Dumisa and is an homage to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, centering on Randall, a low-level criminal recently crippled in an illicit deal gone wrong. Cooped up in his apartment in a rough Cape Town neighborhood, he is heavily indebted to a loan shark named Emmie with the clock ticking for him and his girlfriend Pam to pay the money back. A gift of a pair of binoculars presents him with an opportunity to get his hands on the cash, but at great risk.
Benedict Cumberbatch is set to play Cold War spy Greville Wynne in Ironbark, which is based on the true story of the British businessman who helped the CIA penetrate the Soviet nuclear program during the Cold War. Wynne and his Russian source, Oleg Penkovsky (codenamed Ironbark), provided crucial intelligence that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Cumberbatch's partner-in-crime in the BBC Sherlock series, Martin Freeman, will star opposite Diane Kruger in the espionage-thriller, The Operative, from director Yuval Adler. The film follows Rachel (Kruger), a rogue spy from Israel’s feared national intelligence force Mossad, who vanishes without a trace while attending her father’s funeral in London. The only clue to her whereabouts is a cryptic phone call she places to her former handler Thomas (Freeman), who is then summoned from Germany to Israel by Mossad. Adler adapted the screenplay from the Israeli best-seller, The English Teacher, written by former Israeli intelligence officer Yiftach Reicher Atir.
Liam Neeson will take the leading role and Tarik Saleh will direct in the film Charlie Johnson in the Flames, an adaptation of the Michael Ignatieff thriller novel. Neeson will play the title character, a peerless BBC war correspondent covering civil unrest in the Congo. When the death of an innocent woman shakes him to his core, he risks everything to expose the truth, only to find himself embroiled in a network of murder, corruption, and violence that forces him to question his humanity.
John Woo's remake of his 1989 classic, The Killer, is in negotiations to snag Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o as its lead. The original version of The Killer told the story of an assassin protecting the life of an innocent bystander after accidentally blinding them during a botched hit. Nyong’o would take on the role of the assassin, played by Chow Yun-fat in the 1989 version.
Gravitas Ventures has acquired the feature thriller Broken Star which stars Analeigh Tipton (Crazy, Stupid, Love) for theatrical release this summer. The film is a psychological thriller that follows a young actress who goes to great lengths in order to ensure everlasting fame. Directed by first-time feature film director Dave Schwep and written by David Brant, the film also stars Tyler Labine, Monique Coleman, and Lauren Bowles.
John Cena is set to replace fellow WWE star Dwayne Johnson in an adaptation of The Janson Directive. Written by Jason Bourne author Robert Ludlum, The Janson Directive novel focused on Paul Janson, an ex-Navy SEAL and former member of a covert government agency Consular Operations who becomes a corporate security consultant and takes a job rescuing an important man. When the mission goes awry, Janson is targeted for a "beyond salvage" termination order and has no choice but to follow the clues that lead him to a massive scandal.
An official trailer was released for Gotti, starring John Travolta in the title role as the Italian-American gangster who became boss of the powerful Gambino crime family in New York City.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
An adaptation of the work of novelist Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist) is headed to the small screen, the first-ever TV drama series based on his books. Exploring themes and characters from Coelho’s novels The Devil and Miss Prym, Brida, and The Witch of Portobello, the yet-untitled crime drama follows a young priest who embarks on a journey of self-discovery and redemption – ostracized by his church, a fugitive from the law, and hunted by a powerful crime family. Meanwhile, the CIA agent chasing him discovers mysterious powers, and a more profound connection to the priest than she ever thought possible.
HBO is turning late crime author Michelle McNamara's book on the Golden State Killer into a docu-series. The adaptation of I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer was announced just a month after purchasing the rights and mere days after former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested on eight counts of first-degree murder based on DNA evidence. The book chronicled McNamara's obsessive journey to find the man responsible for committing over 50 sexual assaults, at least 12 murders and over 100 burglaries in California during the '70s and '80s. The case had gone unsolved for more than 30 years until DNA evidence connected DeAngelo to the crimes, leading to his arrest by the Sacramento Sheriff's Office on April 24. McNamara, who dubbed the serial killer behind these crimes as the Golden State Killer in her book, died suddenly in her sleep in 2016 before she could finish it. The book was completed by those closest to her including longtime researcher Paul Haynes, colleague Billy Jensen, writer Gillian Flynn, who penned the introduction, and her husband Patton Oswalt, who wrote the afterword.
Sony Pictures Television Networks has ordered Reckoning, a 10-episode straight-to-series psychological thriller drama, from writer David Hubbard (Noel) and veteran showrunner David Eick (Battlestar Galactica, Falling Skies). Written by Hubbard, who serves as showrunner with David Eick, Reckoning explores the darkest corners of the male psyche through the eyes of two fathers, one of whom is a serial-killer. Like most men, Leo and Mike try to do what’s best for the people they love, the families they protect. But as both struggle to suppress their inner demons, the murder of a local teenager sets them on a course of mutual destruction that will emanate through every facet of their quiet, suburban community.
The Scandinavian terror thriller Greyzone is heading to the UK after Walter Presents acquired the ten-part series from distributor ITV Studios Global Entertainment. The show, set in Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Frankfurt, stars Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as Victoria, a drone engineer who is taken hostage by terrorists in her own home but manages to get a message to the secret services, who desperately try to prevent an attack on Scandinavian soil.
Roseanne star John Goodman and Chewing Gum creator Michaela Coel are joining the Netflix and BBC drama Black Earth Rising. The story, which is set across the UK, Europe, Africa and the U.S., centers on Kate Ashby (Coel), who was rescued as a young child during the Rwandan genocide and adopted by Eve Ashby (Harriet Walter), a world-class British prosecutor in international criminal law. Kate was raised in Britain and, now in her late 20s, she works as a legal investigator in the law chambers of Michael Ennis (Goodman). When Eve takes on a case at the International Criminal Court, prosecuting an African militia leader, the story pulls Michael and Kate into a journey that will upend their lives forever.
Australian broadcaster ABC has confirmed a second season of the crime drama Harrow, which stars Ioan Bruffudd as Dr. Daniel Harrow (Gruffudd), a brilliant but highly unorthodox forensic pathologist. When a terrible secret from his past threatens his family, his career and himself, Harrow needs all his wit, wile and forensic genius not to solve a crime but to keep it buried.
Ahead of The Good Fight's Season 2 finale on May 27, the legal drama series has been renewed for a third season by CBS All Access. A spinoff from CBS' acclaimed drama The Good Wife, the follow-on drama has been well received by critics and tackled current events, including the Donald Trump presidency. The show stars Christine Baranski, Cush Jumbo, Rose Leslie, Audra McDonald, Sarah Steele, Justin Bartha, Michael Boatman, Nyambi Nyambi, and Delroy Lindo.
BBC One has ordered an eight-episode second season of Russian crime drama McMafia. The series airs on AMC in the U.S, but the network has not yet made a decision on a renewal. The series charts the journey of Alex Godman, played by James Norton, as he plunges deeper and deeper into the world of organized crime, eventually finding himself unable to resist the lures of corruption. The project was created by Hossein Amini and James Watkins and is based on the book by Misha Glenny.
Fans of the medical examiner "Ducky" on NCIS will be pleased to hear that actor David McCallum, who's played the iconic character for the past 15 seasons of the show, is returning for the 16th season, as well. With Pauley Perrette leaving the crime procedural at the end of the current fifteenth season, McCallum and NCIS star Mark Harmon are now the only remaining original cast members.
John Hoogenakker, who recurs in Season 1 of Amazon’s drama series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, has been promoted to series regular for Season 2. Hoogenakker plays Matice, a tough and salty American who works black ops for the CIA. At first skeptical of what appears to be a desk-jockey, he quickly develops a new respect for Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) after seeing him handle himself in the field.
Carrie Coon (Gone Girl) has been tapped as the female lead opposite Bill Pullman for the second installment of USA Network’s breakout drama series The Sinner. Season 2 lures Detective Harry Ambrose (Pullman) back to his hometown in rural New York to assess an unsettling and heart wrenching crime — parents murdered by their 11-year-old son, with no apparent motive. As Ambrose realizes there’s nothing ordinary about the boy or where he came from, the investigation pulls him into the hidden darkness of his hometown, and he’s pitted against those who’ll stop at nothing to protect its secrets.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
Sasscer Hill, an author, former thoroughbred breeder, and amateur steeplechase jockey, spoke with the Because Of Horses podcast about her novels that are set against a background of big money, gambling, and horse racing. Her first book in the "Nikki Latrelle" series, Full Mortality, was nominated for both an Agatha and a Macavity award.
Crime writer Baron R. Birtcher was the latest guest on Crime Corner hosted by with Matt Coyle. Birtcher spent a number of years as a professional musician, and founded an independent record label and management company. His crime fiction titles Hard Latitudes, Rain Dogs, and Angels Fall have been nominated for a number of literary awards, including the Nero, Claymore, Left Coast Crime Lefty Award, and Silver Falchion Award in 2016.
On Episode 41 of the Spybrary podcast, the show featured a recorded panel discussion from Spycon 2018 with Spybrary host Shane Whaley joined by authors Mike Brady (Into the Shadows) and C.G.Faulkner (The Edge of Reality).
On the fourth episode of the Crime Syndicate podcast, C.S. DeWildt stopped by to read from and chat about his new novel, Suburban Dick.
THEATER
The Vertigo Theater's Mystery Series will present the Canadian premiere of Sherlock Holmes and the American Problem from May 12 through June 16. The play is set in 1887 during Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, when American performer Anne Moses (a.k.a. Annie Oakley) needs the help of the World’s Greatest Detective. But the simple case of a missing brother quickly leads to extraordinary inventions, robbery, and murder.
No comments:
Post a Comment