Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN

Paramount Pictures has acquired the screen rights to Adrian McKinty’s novel, The Chain. The Chain tells the story of Rachel, who learns that her 11-year-old daughter has been kidnapped, and the only way to get her back is to kidnap another child. Her daughter will be released only when that next victim’s parents kidnap another child. If Rachel doesn’t kidnap another child, or if that child’s parents don’t kidnap a child, her daughter will be murdered. She is now part of The Chain, a terrifying and meticulous chain letter-like kidnapping scheme that turns parents from victims into criminals.

Lionsgate has acquired global film rights to Gerard de Villiers’ best-selling action-spy series, S.A.S. The project will be titled Malko and is a project for Michael Fassbender to star in and produce, with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle) writing the screenplay. With the deal, Lionsgate has secured the full rights to de Villier’s catalogue of best selling espionage thrillers, serialized through 200 books that have been translated into multiple languages and sold north of 120M copies worldwide. Fassbender will play the super spy-for-hire, Malko Linge, an Austrian nobleman and freelance CIA operative who spent his formative years in a special Nazi work camp for captured spies.

The Spanish box office hit, The Body (El Cuerpo), is set to get an English-language remake with Isaac Ezban directing. The thriller centers on a detective searching for the body of a femme fatale which has gone missing from a morgue.

Sean Penn's next directorial venture, Flag Day, is heading into production as it rounds out its cast; Penn will be joined onscreen by his daughter and son, Dylan and Hopper, along with Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Norbert Leo Butz, Dale Dickey, Eddie Marsan, Bailey Noble, and Katheryn Winnick. Tony-winning playwright Jez Butterworth (behind Broadway’s The Ferryman) penned the screenplay, which is based on Jennifer Vogel’s 2005 memoir, Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father's Counterfeit Life. The book tells the story of a daughter coming to terms with her perceptions of her criminal father, a bank robber and career counterfeiter who evaded arrest for six months.

Cary Elwes has joined the cast of Black Christmas, the Blumhouse Productions remake of the 1974 slasher cult classic for Universal Pictures. Elwes will play a main part in the film, but details of the role were not disclosed. The updated version of Black Christmas is set at Hawthorne College over the holidays when, one by one, sorority girls on campus are being killed by an unknown stalker. But the killer is about to discover that this generation’s young women aren’t willing to become hapless victims as they mount a fight to the finish.

Ice Cube is negotiating to team with Dave Bautista in The Killer’s Game, the Simon Kinberg and Rand Ravich-scripted adaptation of the Jay Bonansinga novel. Bautista plays an elite hitman named Joe Flood who learns he has a terminal disease. A devout Catholic, he won’t kill himself, and instead takes out a contract on himself and makes sure the woman he has fallen in love with is financially set. When Flood gets word he was misdiagnosed and is fine, his new mission is to protect his lover and try to call off the hit even though several assassins are now vying for the bounty, with Ice Cube playing the best of those assassins.

Eiza Gonzalez (Baby Driver) is joining I Care A Lot, the Black Bear Pictures thriller starring Rosamund Pike and Peter Dinklage. J Blakeson (The Disappearance Of Alice Creed) is directing from his own original screenplay. Oscar-nominee Pike will play Marla Grayson, a highly successful legal guardian with a knack for using the law to her benefit and her elderly clients’ detriment, living a life of luxury at their expense. But when her seemingly innocent next victim turns out to have dangerous secrets, Marla must use every ounce of her wit and cunning to stay alive.

Morena Baccarin is the latest to join the cast of the Tim Kirkby-directed action thriller, Waldo, starring Mel Gibson and Charlie Hunnam. The project is based on the novel, Last Looks, by Howard Michael Gould, and centers around a disgraced LAPD detective (Hunnam), who’s spent the past three years living off the grid. He’s reluctantly pulled back into his old life by a former lover in order to solve the murder of an eccentric celebrity’s wife. 

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

The Television Critics Association’s 35th Annual TCA Awards nominations were announced last Wednesday. Up for Best Drama Series are the crime dramas Better Call Saul (AMC); The Good Fight (CBS All Access); and Killing Eve (BBC America). Best Movie or Miniseries also includes Escape at Dannemora (Showtime); Sharp Objects (HBO); and When They See Us (Netflix). Among the Best Achievement in a Drama Series nominees are Amy Adams for Sharp Objects (HBO); Patricia Arquette for Escape at Dannemora (Showtime); Christine Baranski for The Good Fight (CBS All Access); and Jodie Comer for Killing Eve (BBC America).

BET Networks has put into development Black Mambas, a one-hour drama from Rebel creator Amani Walker. Black Mambas follows the journey of four powerful women who are bikers. After growing tired of the violent crimes and injustice in their hometown of New Orleans, they decide to take justice into their own hands.

The Killing’s Michelle Forbes has signed on to USA Network’s CIA drama, Treadstone, joining Jeremy Irvine, Brian J. Smith, Patrick Fugit, Michael Gaston, Tess Haubrich, and Shruti Haasan in the cast. The drama hails from Heroes creator Tim Kring and Ben Smith (a producer of the "Bourne" franchise) and explores the origin story and present-day actions of a CIA black ops program known as Operation Treadstone — a covert program that uses behavior-modification protocol to turn recruits into nearly superhuman assassins. The first season follows sleeper agents across the globe as they’re mysteriously "awakened" to resume their deadly missions.

HBO has scheduled Monday, August 12 for the premiere of the ten-part limited series, Our Boys. The project is set in the summer of 2014, when three Jewish teenagers are kidnapped and murdered by Hamas militants. Two days later, the burned body of a Palestinian teenager from eastern Jerusalem is found in a forest on the western outskirts of the city. In the ensuing days, an agent from the internal terror division of Shin Bet investigates the murder, while the parents of the slain teenager begin their long and anguished journey toward justice and consolation.

The Hallmark Channel posted a trailer for its newest Mystery 101 movie, Playing Dead, where crime fiction professor Amy (Jill Wagner) and Detective Travis (Kristoffer Polaha) team up to solve the latest murder in their small town.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Read or Dead hosts Katie McClean Horner and Rincey Abraham talked about mysteries by Australian authors, along with some news about Linda Fairstein, women writing in the mystery genre, and more.

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Cara Black to discuss Murder in Bel-Air, the 19th installment in Black’s Paris-set series featuring private eye, Aimée Leduc.

Spybrary's latest episode featured a guest panel discussing the works of James Bond continuation author, John Gardner.

On this week's Writer's Detective Bureau, host Adam Richardson, a veteran police detective, took on topics including "Character Arc, Detective Sergeant Demotion, and Sex Offenders."