It's Monday again, which means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN
Eric Bana (star of the Bravo series Dirty John) will star in an adaptation of Jane Harper's bestselling novel The Dry. Robert Connolly will direct the Australian production from a script he wrote with Harry Cripps. The Dry won the Ned Kelly Award for best first crime fiction in 2017 and was voted best crime and thriller at the 2018 British Book Awards. The story centers on a policeman who returns to the country town he grew up in to investigate a murder-suicide.
Saban Films has obtained the U.S. distribution rights to Nomis, the David Raymond directorial debut that stars Henry Cavill and Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley. The psychological thriller, which has its world premiere as the closing night film at the LA Film Festival, also stars Alexandra Daddario, Stanley Tucci, Minka Kelly, and Nathan Fillion. The plot follows Marshall (Cavill), a weathered Lieutenant, and his police force as they investigate a string of female abductions and murders linked to an online predator. When new leads emerge and the case unravels, Marshall teams with local vigilante (Kingsley) in pursuit of vengeance.
Robert Patrick is in talks to join Liam Neeson and Kate Walsh in the action thriller, Honest Thief. In the film, written by Steve Allrich and Ozark co-creator Mark Williams, career bank robber Tom Carter (Neeson) meets the love of his life in Annie (Kate Walsh), who works at the front desk of a storage facility where he hid $7 million in stolen loot. They fall head over heels, and he resolves to wipe the slate clean by turning himself in but when the case is turned over to a crooked FBI agent, everything becomes far more dangerous and difficult. Patrick will play the FBI agent who sets up the story.
Lionsgate announced that the third installment of Gerard Butler’s "Fallen" series, Angel Has Fallen, will be released on August 23, 2019. The film sees Butler return as Secret Service agent Mike Banning, who finds himself framed for an assassination attempt on U.S. President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman). Pursued by his own agency and the FBI, he must find the real threat to the president’s life, uncovering a plot to hijack Air Force One.
A retrospective of filmmaker Jacques Tourneur is heading to New York City December 14 - January 3. His notable works in the horror and mystery genre include the espionage thriller Berlin Express, starring Robert Ryan and Merle Oberon; Night of the Demon, a slow-burning chiller about witchcraft in contemporary England; the brooding, menace-edged Circle of Danger, starring Ray Milland; and the psychological mystery Experiment Perilous, starring Hedy Lamarr as the disturbed wife of a wealthy man who may—or may not—be going mad.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
NBC has put in development Prism, a Rashomon-inspired drama. Written by Daniel Barnz, who also directs, Prism is a provocative exploration of a murder trial in which every episode is told through the perspective of a different person involved. Driven by an ensemble of complicated and original characters, the show will explore bias in the criminal justice system and let the audience ask if truth matters less than who can tell the most compelling story.
The BBC is developing a drama based on David Burke’s book The Spy Who Came In From The Co-Op: Melita Norwood and the Ending of Cold War Espionage. It follows one of the most important Soviet spies of the 20th century, Melita Norwood, a member of one of a communist spy networks in Britain who helped shorten the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb project by up to five years.
Netflix continues to roll out international scripted projects and has ordered a prequel series based on Henning Mankell's best-selling Kurt Wallander novels from Yellow Bird UK. The six-part series will feature a British and Swedish cast and will go into production in 2019. The project will tell the story of the young Detective Kurt Wallander's first case.
Netflix has also commissioned the 12-part series Criminal, from Killing Eve writer George Kay. The show is set across four countries, France, Spain, Germany and the UK, with three episodes per country. Criminal takes place exclusively within the confines of a police interview suite, and is described as "a stripped down, cat-and-mouse drama that will focus on the intense mental conflict between the police officer and the suspect in question."
Acorn TV has acquired the true crime drama Manhunt from ITV, which stars Martin Clunes (of Doc Martin fame) as Detective Colin Sutton, the police officer who tenaciously pursued British serial killer Levi Bellfield.
YouTube has given a pilot order to drama Dark Cargo, written by Adam and Max Reid (Sneaky Pete). Dark Cargo is described as a "high-octane, cliffhanger-driven, neo-noir thriller set in the big rig cab of Joe Dobbs as he traverses the darkest nights of his life. What begins as a random encounter with a disturbed stranger turns into a race against time, the police, and even more malevolent forces. All the while, Joe just wants to get back to his family."
Donald Sutherland has joined Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant in HBO’s upcoming drama series The Undoing. Based on the book You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, the six-episode series stars Kidman as Grace Sachs, a successful therapist with a devoted husband (Grant) and young son who attends an elite private school in New York City. Overnight a chasm opens in her life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only a chain of terrible revelations. Sutherland will play Franklin Renner, Grace’s father, a retired financier and loving grandfather, who is tasked with protecting his family when the turbulent revelations come to light.
George Eads will be leaving the CBS drama MacGyver, where he's co-starred since the pilot. According to Deadline, although his character, Jack Dalton, is being written out, he is not being killed off, with the door left open for Eads to possibly return as a guest star. The official reason for his departure is that he wanted to spend more time with his daughter in Los Angeles, especially after production on the show moved to Atlanta.
Alona Tal (SEAL Team) is the first actor cast in ABC’s pilot NYPD Blue, a new iteration of the iconic cop drama. Tal will play Detective Nicole Lazarus in the sequel, which revolves around Theo, the son of Dennis Franz’s Detective Andy Sipowicz character from the original series, who tries to earn his detective shield and work in the 15th squad while investigating his father’s murder.
A trailer was released for the TNT limited series, I Am the Night, starring Chris Pine as a reporter who seeks redemption for a failing career with a new look into the murder of Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. the "Black Dahlia.
A trailer was also released for the indie thriller, Perfume. The six-episode season is based on the same Patrick Süskind novel that led to the 2006 film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.
BBC One has dropped the first trailer for Season 5 of Luther, starring Idris Elba. As the season synopsis begins, "When the moonless shadows of London give birth to a new nightmare, DCI John Luther is once more called to immerse himself in the deepest depths of human depravity."
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The Spectator Books Podcast welcomed Lee Child to chat about Reacher, revenge, and writing without a plan.
Tell The Damn Story interviewed mystery author, professor, and book critic, Art Taylor, whose short crime fiction has won Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and Derringer Awards.
The latest Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast features the mystery short story, "What a Little Cinnamon Can Do," written by L.D. Barnes and read by actor Julia Reimer. The story involves baking, with a little spice for the holiday season.
Criminal Mischief Episode #09 focused on "The Mysterious Human Brain," with Dr. D.P. Lyle noting that understanding a bit about how it works can help you craft your fictional crime stories.
Writer Types had a chat with Ian Rankin from Bouchercon including a listen to his band, Best Picture, and their first single Isabelle. Other guests included true crime writer Nancy Rommelmann, and Tom Pitts, Marietta Miles and JJ Hensley, who offered up Crime Writing 101 tips.
Meet the Thriller Author welcomed police officer Gavin Reese, who is the author of the Alex Landon thrillers and the Saint Thomas thriller series.
Speaking of Mysteries was joined by Val McDermid to talk about DCI Karen Pirie of Police Scotland, back in Val McDermid’s new crime fiction novel, Broken Ground.
