Media Murder for Monday

It's Monday again, which means it's time for the latest roundup of crime drama news:

AWARDS

The Screen Actors Guild announced their "best of 2018" nominees this past week. Crime drama nods on the film side include BlacKKKlansman, one of the finalists for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (the SAG equivalent of Best Picture), with John David Washington and Adam Driver also receiving nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. Melissa McCarthy was also nominated for her role as a forger in Can You Ever Forgive Me?. On the small-screen side, Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series included The Americans, Better Call Saul, and Ozark. For the full list of nominees, you can click over here.

The Critics' Choice TV Awards are in their 9th year and voted on by TV critics and journalists of the Broadcast Television Journalists Association. The crime dramas nominated for Best Drama Series 2018 included The Americans, Better Call Saul, Homecoming, and Killing Eve. Best actor nods include Diego Luna (Narcos: Mexico); Richard Madden (Bodyguard); Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul); and Matthew Rhys (The Americans). Best Actress nominees include Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh (Killing Eve); Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Deuce); Julia Roberts (Homecoming); and Keri Russell (The Americans). For the full list, follow this link.

THE BIG SCREEN

Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster will direct, co-produce and star in an English-language remake of Woman at War, the eco-thriller that Iceland submitted for the Foreign Language competition at the upcoming 91st Academy Awards. Foster will reinterpret the role of Halla (played in the original film by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir), a genial middle-aged music teacher hiding a secret life as an outlaw environmental activist with a grudge against the local aluminum industry. 

Bold Films and Nine Stories have acquired rights to remake The Guilty, the suspense thriller that serves as Denmark’s entry into the Oscar Foreign Language Film race. Jake Gyllenhaal is attached to star as a cop with a dark past who has been suspended and relegated to a desk job. One night, he receives a call from a terrified woman, and he must conquer his inner demons to save her.

Belgium-born actress Lyne Renee is joining Guy Ritchie’s Toff Guys and will play Jackie, the wife of Jeremy Strong’s Cannabis Kingpin character. Written by Ritchie, Marn Davies and Ivan Atkinson, the Miramax film explores the collide between old European wealth and the modern marijuana industrial complex with new gang entrants swarming. Matthew McConaughey, Henry Golding, Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant star as well as Michelle Dockery, who recently replaced Kate Beckinsale in the project.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

NBC has put in development The Last Spy, from Designated Survivor creator David Guggenheim, The Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb, Imagine Television and CBS TV Studios. Written by Guggenheim, The Last Spy is an espionage drama in which the members of an elite deep cover CIA unit are killed after their real-life identities are exposed. In the aftermath, the only operative to escape the onslaught recruits her own team of former spies and assets to complete their missions while also working to unravel the conspiracy behind who betrayed her friends and colleagues.

NBC has put in development the crime drama Conway, which centers around St. Louis detective Cal Conway (Vin Diesel) who finds his world turned upside down when he wakes up from a coma with exceptional cognitive abilities. Returning to the force, he sets out to solve the city’s most complex cases but the discovery of a lethal side effect makes Cal wonder whether his new abilities are more of a blessing or a curse.

Warner Brothers is developing a limited series based on the life of American painter Mary Pinchot Meyer. The project hails from Oscar-winning writer David Seidler (The King’s Speech) and Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell’s Safehouse Pictures. Written by Seidler, based on Peter Janney’s book, Mary’s Mosaic, the drama/murder mystery explores different theories about the killing of American painter Mary Pinchot Meyer while also exploring her secret romantic relationship with President John F. Kennedy.

Epix has picked up a seven-episode third season of Get Shorty for premiere in 2019. Get Shorty is based in part on Elmore Leonard’s 1990 bestselling novel, which also spawned Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1995 feature. The series follows Miles Daly (Chris O’Dowd), muscle for a Nevada crime ring who tries to become a movie producer in Hollywood with the help of a washed-up producer, Rick Moreweather (Ray Romano), as a means to leave his criminal past behind.

Logan Lerman is set to star in the Jordan Peele-produced Amazon drama The Hunt, set in 1977 New York City. The project centers on a group known as The Hunters, who discover that hundreds of high ranking Nazi officials have been conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the U.S. and set out on a bloody quest to bring them to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans. 

Netflix announced that its upcoming film, The Highwaymen, starring Woody Harrelson and Kevin Costner, will debut on the platform on March 29, 2019. The film is directed by John Lee Hancock and follows the untold true story of the legendary detectives who brought down Bonnie and Clyde, during a time when outlaws made headlines and lawmen made history. 

The streaming service also announced a new docuseries titled Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. The four-episode series will feature never-before-heard audio interviews with Ted Bundy on death row. The series will launch on January 24 — 30 years after the date of his execution in Florida.

Amazon has ordered a third season of drama series Goliath, from David E. Kelley and Jonathan Shapiro, for premiere in 2019. Dennis Quaid, Amy Brenneman, Beau Bridges, Griffin Dunne, Sherilyn Fenn, and Shamier Anderson will play in key roles for the new season. Lawrence Trilling, who worked on the first two seasons, returns as showrunner for Season 3. Bill Bob Thornton stars as a down-on-his-luck attorney seeking redemption with a rag-tag team of investigators.

CBS All Access has cancelled its first original series since the debut of the streaming service in 2014. The mystery drama One Dollar was given a straight to series order in August 2017 and premiered a year later in late August 2018. As its title suggests, a one-dollar bill played an integral role in the series, changing hands between a group of characters involved in a shocking multiple murder. The show starred John Carroll Lynch, Nathaniel Martello-White, and Philip Ettinger.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Writer Types welcomed authors Bryan Gruley, Terry Shames and Scott Von Doviak and also took a look at some of their favorite books of 2018.

The Writer's Detective Bureau, hosted by veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, discussed homicide report databases, veteran detective advice for a rookie detective, conducting research with a VPN and why you should avoid TOR.