It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Yes, it's the start of cinema awards season again, beginning with the 2019 New York Film Critics Circle winners, announced last week. Martin Scorsese's mob drama, The Irishman, was named Best Film, while Joe Pesci won Best Supporting Actor for his role in the movie. The brother team of Josh and Benny Safdie won Best Director nods for the heist drama, Uncut Gems; and Quentin Tarantino won Best Screenplay for Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.
Likewise, the Los Angeles Film Critics Award winners were announced yesterday, with The Irishman winning the Runner-up Best Picture nod (with Martin Scorsese landing Runner-up Best Director for the film), behind the South Korean film, Parasite (Best Picture and Director). Actor Joe Pesci was also the Runner-up winner for his supporting role in The Irishman.
The 25th annual Critics Choice Association’s (formerly the Broadcast Film Critics Association) Critics’ Choice Awards nominations, also announced yesterday, includes Best Picture nods for The Irishman and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, with Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino picking up Best Director nominations, respectively. Best Acting nominations included The Irishman (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Best Ensemble); Once Upon a Time (Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Julia Butters, and Best Ensemble), as well as a Best Ensemble nod to Knives Out.
The Golden Globe nominations were announced earlier today, and The Irishmen continued its award season accolades with a nod for Best Drama, while Knives Out and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood were both nominated in the Best Comedy/Musical category. Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino were also Best Director nominees for Irishman and Once Upon a Time. Acting-wise, Knives Out had two nominees, Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas; "Once" had two, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt; and The Irishman, two, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. For all the nominees in the various categories, follow this link.
After first releasing a teaser for the trailer, the official trailer dropped for No Time to Die, the latest—and last—outing for Daniel Craig as James Bond. The movie is expected to hit theaters on April 10th.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
The Golden Globe television nominee lists included several crime dramas in various categories, namely Big Little Lies, Killing Eve, Mr. Robot, Unbelievable, The Spy, and The Act.
The 25th annual Critics Choice Association’s Critics’ Choice Awards nominations, includes nods to The Good Fight (Best Drama); plus acting nominations for Christine Baranski, Delroy Lindo, and Audra McDonald (The Good Fight); Jodie Comer (Killing Eve); Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Meryl Streep (Big Little Lies), Mahershala Ali (True Detective); Jesse Plemons (El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie).
Indie feature studio Roadside Attractions continues its foray into scripted television by acquiring Robert Dugoni’s bestselling spy thriller, The Eighth Sister, to develop as a TV drama. Set in present-day US and Russia, The Eighth Sister (the first book in a planned series), follows Charles Jenkins, a long-retired African American CIA case-officer who is re-engaged by his former bureau chief to run a top-secret mission in current day Moscow—only to find himself running for his life and possibly betrayed by his own country.
ABC has given a put-pilot commitment with penalty to ISB (working title), a one-hour crime drama from Kevin Costner, Aaron Helbing, A+E Studios, and 20th Century Fox TV. Written and executive produced by Costner and Helbing, ISB follows the elite special agents of the Investigative Services Branch who are tasked with solving the most complex and heinous crimes committed within the National Parks of the ISB’s Pacific West region.
Fox has put into development a remake of the British crime drama, Silent Witness, to star Melissa Leo, who will exec produce alongside Outlander writer Joy Blake and Kim and Eric Tannenbaum. Silent Witness is a long-running legal drama, airing on the BBC since 1996. It follows two determined women with conflicting methodologies working for the Chief Medical Examiner in the shadow of a major departmental scandal involving corruption at the highest levels.
Spanish crime thriller, The Room, is set for a UK adaptation. The series follows Yago Costa, who was considered a top-notch police detective until he committed murder. Now, he is in prison and aims to tell the world why he did it. He’s counting on help from Sara, a young and ambitious journalist to whom he gives his exclusive story, but she has to decide if she's willing to put her own life in danger to get to the truth—and, ultimately, whether she can trust him.
BBC Studios has secured its first commission from Irish public broadcaster RTÉ, a noir thriller from The Spanish Princess and Mr. Selfridge writer Kate O’Riordan. The six-part series is set on the rugged coast of County Clare where a wife investigates the brutal death of her husband who is found dead at the foot of a cliff the morning after a family party. As she unravels the circumstances that led to his demise, she discovers how his controlling, manipulative behavior impacted their children and his siblings and comes to the shocking realization one of them may have been driven to murder.
HBO has greenlighted The White House Plumbers, a five-part limited series starring Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux, which revisits one of the biggest political scandals in American history. The project is based in part on public records and Integrity, the book by Egil "Bud" Krogh and Matthew Krogh. The series tells the true story of how Nixon’s own political saboteurs and Watergate masterminds, E. Howard Hunt (Harrelson) and G. Gordon Liddy (Theroux), accidentally toppled the Presidency they were zealously trying to protect.
Greg Silverman’s Stampede Ventures has acquired best-selling author Max Seeck’s thriller novel, The Faithful Reader (to be published as The Witch Hunter in the U.S.), for a TV series adaptation. The story follows Detective Jessica Niemi, who is called to investigate an extraordinary murder case. The wife of a famous writer, Roger Koponen, seems to have been killed in a bizarre ritual. As more ritual murders occur, it becomes obvious that Jessica is after a serial killer. But the murders are not random – they follow a pattern taken from Roger’s bestselling trilogy. Has a fan gone mad, or is this case more personal? How can Jessica stop a criminal who knows every detail of the book even better than the author?
Gal Gadot will produce a U.S. adaptation of the Israeli crime drama Queens for Endemol Shine. The most-watched series of 2018 for the Israeli network HOT, Queens follows the women of the Malka family who must band together after all the Malka men are murdered by a rival crime syndicate. Thrust into a life that they did not choose or necessarily want, the women realize they can finally control their own destinies and respond to each other and the world around them as complete individuals, all while trying to stay alive.
Wild Sheep Content is teaming with France’s Studio Reaz to adapt Marked for Life, the debut novel by Scandinavian crime writer Emelie Schepp. The story centers on Jana Berzelius, a young, brilliant but emotionally stunted Swedish prosecutor, who was adopted as a child and can’t remember anything about her life before the age of nine. While investigating the death of a prominent figure in her community, she follows a trail that leads to a dead young boy who has a tattoo on the back of his neck similar to Jana’s, further deepening the mystery.
BBC One has commissioned a legal drama, Showtrial, a six-part series about a murder trial that explodes in the national consciousness. The project follows Talitha Campbell, the arrogant daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur, who is put on trial following the disappearance of fellow student, Hannah Ellis, the hard-working daughter of a single mother. Showtrial follows both sides of the argument from the point of arrest to the verdict, with the nation gripped by the details of the case, which touches on wealth, politics and prejudice.
The primary cast is set for Netflix's eight-episode thriller series, Clickbait, which "explores the ways in which our most dangerous and uncontrolled impulses are fueled in the age of social media and reveals the ever widening fractures we find between our virtual and real-life personas." Zoe Kazan stars as Pia Brewer, a young woman desperate for answers in the search for her missing brother, a case that has become a media sensation. Betty Gabriel and Adrian Grenier will play Pia's family members, while Phoenix Raei plays a detective with the Oakland Police Department who finds himself at the center of a media storm as he investigates this case.
Natalie Martinez, Brian Geraghty, Genesis Rodriguez, and Keilani Arellanes have joined Kiefer Sutherland and Boyd Holbrook in Quibi’s The Fugitive, a new take on the 1993 Harrison Ford film that was in turn based on the 1960s TV series. This version of the story centers on Mike Russo (Holbrook), a blue-collar worker who just wants to make sure his wife and 10-year-old daughter are safe when a bomb rips through the Los Angeles subway train he’s riding on. When Mike is wrongfully blamed, he must prove his innocence by uncovering the real perpetrator, before the legendary Detective Clay Bryce (Sutherland) who's heading the investigation can apprehend him.
CBS has put in development Truth & Justice, a crime drama from one of its top drama showrunners, Peter Lenkov (Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, Magnum P.I.), as well as The Oath creator Joe Halpin and The Dirt author Neil Strauss. The project revolves around a disgraced cop-turned-PI and a down-and-out journalist, both seeking redemption, who team up and use nothing but their intellect, perseverance and profound empathy to dive deep into the lives of victims and perpetrators to deliver the justice that is so desperately needed in an otherwise flawed system.
The BBC One murder-mystery drama, Shetland, is to return for two more series. Based on the crime novels of Ann Cleeves, series six and seven will be filmed in 2020 and 2021 for six, hour-long episodes in each season. Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall as Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, debuted on BBC One back in 2013.
Briana Cuoco, sister of The Flight Attendant star and executive producer Kaley Cuoco, has been tapped for a recurring role on the upcoming HBO Max series. The Flight Attendant centers on Cassie (Kaley), a flight attendant who wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man—and no idea what happened. Briana will play Cecilia, a quirky and ambitious assistant who’s obsessed with organization and eavesdropping on calls.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
A new episode of Mysteryrat's Maze podcast is up, featuring the Christmas mystery short story "A Christmas Trifle" by Donna Andrews, read by actor Ariel Linn.
Special guest co-host Alafair Burke joined Eric Beetner on Writer Types to talk with authors Kate White and Steph Cha. Eric also spoke with four Australian authors on a tour of the United States: Emma Viskic, Sulari Gentill, Jock Serong, and Robert Gott.
Speaking of Eric Beetner, he was named on the latest episode of Frank Zafiro's Wrong Place, Write Crime podcast by guest Connie Irvine as one of the authors whose books you should get to know, along with Colin Conway and others.
Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham talked about what mysteries they read this year that were their favorites.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed attorney J.K. Franko to talk about the first in The Talion Trilogy, Eye for Eye, which sees one couple take the law into their own hands with disastrous consequences.
