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

Henry Cavill will star in Legendary’s upcoming Enola Holmes as the iconic Sherlock Holmes. The film, starring Millie Bobby Brown and directed by Harry Bradbeer, is based on Nancy Springer’s book series, "The Enola Holmes Mysteries," with a script written by Jack Thorne. The stories follow the adventures of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes’ much younger sister, Enola, a highly capable detective in her own right. It was also announced last week that Adeel Akhtar and Helena Bonham Carter have been added to the cast.

Four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening is in negotiations for the role of Euphemia in 20th Century Fox’s Death on the Nile, the Kenneth Branagh-directed follow-up to his 2017 Agatha Christie adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. Bening would join Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Tom Bateman, and Letitia Wright, as well as Branagh, himself, who will reprise his role as iconic detective Hercule Poirot. 

Paul Ben-Victor has been added to the cast of the Tim Kirkby-directed action thriller, Waldo, joining previously announced cast members Mel Gibson, Charlie Hunnam, Morena Baccarin, Dominic Monaghan, Eiza Gonzalez, Jacob Scipio, and Clancy Brown. Known for his role as Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos in HBO’s critically acclaimed The Wire, Ben-Victor will step into the role of Detective Pete Conady in the film. Based on the novel Last Looks by Howard Gould (who also adapted the screenplay), the story follows 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.

Since late 2018, there have been rumors about the possibility of a Breaking Bad movie that escalated when series lead Bryan Cranston essentially confirmed the news in a radio interview. After a few months of silence on the sequel front, both Cranston and co-star Aaron Paul tweeted the exact same image, leading to further speculation that both will be involved in the project in some capacity.

A preview was released for Bill Condon's The Good Liar, based on Nicholas Searle's novel of the same name, showing the tension and drama that arise when a recently widowed woman (Helen Mirren) crosses paths with a covert con artist (Ian McKellen) who just identified his latest target.

A second trailer dropped for The Informer, a new thriller starring Joel Kinnaman, Rosamund Pike, and Clive Owen. Based on the novel Three Seconds by the Swedish crime writing duo, Roslund & Hellström, the film follows Pete Koslow (Kinnaman), a reformed criminal and former special operations soldier, who finds himself working undercover for FBI handlers to infiltrate the Polish mob's drug trade in New York.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

In one of the first big sales of the 2019-20 broadcast development season, CBS has given a series production commitment to The Lincoln Lawyer, a legal drama from The Practice creator David E. Kelley that's based on Michael Connelly’s series of bestselling novels. Scripted by Kelley, The Lincoln Lawyer centers on Mickey Haller, an iconoclastic idealist, who runs his law practice out of the back of his Lincoln Town Car as he takes on cases big and small across the expansive city of Los Angeles.

Freeform has given a pilot order to Close Up, an hour-long suspense drama co-executive produced by How to Get Away With Murder creator, Peter Nowalk, and ABC Signature, part of Disney TV Studios. Written by Keith Staskiewicz (Three Delivery), Close Up is set in the seemingly ordinary suburban town of Centreville, NJ. But Centreville high school student, Rachel Guyer, is on a mission to expose the truth about her seemingly normal hometown and turn her community inside out.

Following strong ratings, CBS has ordered a second season of its hit summer action-adventure series, Blood & Treasure. The series, which premiered May 21, is a globe-trotting action-adventure drama about a brilliant antiquities expert (Danny McNamara) and a cunning art thief (Sofia Pernas) who team up to catch a ruthless terrorist who funds his attacks through stolen treasure. 

Liam Hemsworth is set to star in an action thriller for Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman’s short-form video platform Quibi. The project is being spearheaded by Scorpion creator Nick Santora, who will write and executive produce the series. The logline: "Desperate to take care of his pregnant wife before a terminal illness can take his life, Dodge Maynard (Hemsworth) accepts an offer to participate in a deadly game where he soon discovers that he’s not the hunter… but the prey."

Ed Asner and Alan Cumming have joined USA Network’s upcoming drama, Briarpatch. The series is a gender-swapped adaptation of Ross Thomas’ novel of the same name, which sees Rosario Dawson playing a version of Thomas’ lead character, Ben Dill. Allegra Dill is a dogged investigator returning to her border-town Texas home after her sister is murdered, but what begins as a search for a killer turns into an all-consuming fight to bring her corrupt hometown to its knees. Asner will play the role of James Staghorne Sr., president and owner of the town’s only newspaper, while Cumming will play the role of Clyde Brattle, a charming and murderous arms dealer.

Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis, Ryan Kwanten, and newcomer Jordan Alexander are set as series regulars in Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones, the second season of the Sacred Lies anthology series from Blumhouse Television for Facebook Watch. The new season features a new cast and storyline that draws inspiration from a story collected from the Brothers Grimm, The Singing Bones, as well as real-life murder cases.

Chris Chalk (Gotham) and Shea Whigham (Homecoming) are set as series regulars opposite star Matthew Rhys in Perry Mason, HBO’s limited series based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner. The series, set in 1931 Los Angeles, follows the origins of legendary criminal defense lawyer, Perry Mason (Rhys), who is seeking redemption when the case of the decade lands in his lap. Additionally, Nate Corddry (Mom), Veronica Falcon (Queen of the South), Jefferson Mays (I Am The Night), Gayle Rankin (GLOW), and Lili Taylor (Chambers) have been cast in recurring roles.

Bodyguard’s Keeley Hawes is to star in the British crime drama, Honour, for ITV. The two-parter will see Hawes star as the real-life Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Good, who brought five killers to justice following the death of Banaz Mahmod, the young Londoner murdered by her own family for falling in love with the wrong man. 

Hunter Doohan (Truth Be Told) is set as a lead opposite Bryan Cranston in Your Honor, Showtime’s 10-episode limited series based on a popular Israeli drama (Kvodo). The legal thriller hails from Peter Moffat (Criminal Justice) and Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife). Doohan will play Adam Desiato, a high school senior who is involved in a hit-and-run accident that sets off a chain of events that lead to lies, deceit and impossible choices for himself and his father, a respected New Orleans judge (Cranston).

Henry Ian Cusick (The Passage) has joined the cast of CBS’s action drama, MacGyver, as a series regular for its upcoming fourth season. Cusick will play Russ, a quick-witted Oxford-educated ex-military who is a master manipulator and salesman — skilled in propaganda and lie detection with an extremely high emotional intelligence. 

When CBS made its new series pickups last month, the network passed on all remaining pilots with the exception of conspiracy thriller drama, Surveillance, starring Chicago PD alumna Sophia Bush. However, after further deliberation, the network has decided not to proceed with a series order. Surveillance is described as a complex and timely spy thriller centered around the head of communications for the NSA (Bush), a charming operative who finds her loyalties torn between protecting the government’s secrets and her own.

Universal Television has let the options on the entire cast of its NBC’s drama pilot, Prism, lapse while the studio continues conversations with Netflix about picking up the project to series. As was previously reported, producers want to retool the project and shoot a new pilot for the streaming service after the parties involved considered it too "premium" for the peacock network. Written by Daniel Barnz, Prism is inspired by Rashomon, the 1950 Japanese period psychological thriller directed by Akira Kurosawa. Every episode follows a murder case told through the perspective of a different key person involved.

Sony dropped a first look at the upcoming Charlie’s Angels reboot from director Elizabeth Banks. The action-packed new trailer sees a new generation — Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska and Naomi Scott — working for the mysterious Charles Townsend. This go-around, Charlie’s top-secret agency has gone global, and teams of Angels are guided by multiple Bosleys taking on dangerous missions. The reboot also stars Noah Centineo, Sam Claflin and Patrick Stewart.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

Spybrary's latest episode featured Mick Herron talking about his new book, Joe Country, the 6th novel in the Slough House/Jackson Lamb series.

In the latest Writer's Detective Bureau, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson took on topics including "Bio-Terrorism, State Level Investigations, and Having Your Back to the Door."

Episode #22 of Criminal Mischief investigated "Common Medical Errors in Fiction."

THEATER

Following the Norwich Theatre Royal's current run of the adaptation of Paula Hawkins's novel, Girl on a Train (with performances through July 6), the theatre will stage a production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap beginning July 8 with a run through July 13. Christie's classic play centers on a group of people gathered in a country house cut off by the snow who discover there is a murderer in their midst.

Meanwhile, UK theatre-goers have time to catch a performance of The Mousetrap at the Theatre Royal in Brighton, which runs through July 8.