Media Murder for Monday

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

With the final season of her hit series Ozark set to premiere later this month on Netflix, Emmy winner Julia Garner is already setting up her next big project, with a starring role in Paramount Players’s Apartment 7A. John Krasinski and Allyson Seeger are producing via Sunday Night along with Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller via their Platinum Dunes company. Natalie Erika James is attached to direct and co-wrote the latest script with Christian White, based off a draft by Skylar James. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but it is being described as a psychological thriller.

Michael Cudlitz and Jake Abel and have signed on to star alongside Zhang Hanyu and Vivienne Tien in Unspoken, a dramatic feature from writer-director Daming Chen that's currently in production. Unspoken tells the story of Xu (Zhang), an estranged father separated from his deaf daughter and her new life at an American university, whose murder reunites them in a way neither could have foreseen. The tragedy pierces Xu with grief and guilt that he couldn’t be present to protect his child. An ex-cop himself, he becomes convinced the local authorities are pursuing the wrong suspect – and that racism is compromising the investigation.

Mena Suvari will star alongside Steven Ogg, Christina Ricci, and Samantha Win in The Dresden Sun, the upcoming cyberpunk film from writer-director Michael Ryan. A heist goes south when Crilenger (Ogg)—a brilliant, principled mercenary with a traumatic past—works with an insider to steal a valued asset from Peredor Corporation called "the sphere." Meanwhile, a financial analyst, who despises his job at the powerful investment firm Mutual One, finds himself caught between deadly corporate rivals, financial fraud, and technological espionage, and is ultimately forced to run from a psychopathic military contractor.

Thornbyrd Films has launched production on Healed, a psychological thriller starring Guinevere Turner, Shantell Yasmine Abeydeera, Emily Goss, Benjamin Barrett, and Todd Lowe, which has been awarded the coveted ReFrame Stamp from the Sundance Institute and Women in Film for gender-balanced hiring. The film, written by Abeydeera, follows former pop icon Jazz Powers (Abeydeera) and her pregnant wife Olivia (Goss) as they attend an intimate meditation retreat at the invitation of renowned mindfulness expert, Georgia Chambers (Turner). A string of unorthodox therapy sessions and unusual events involving Georgia’s neighbor (Barrett) evoke memories of Jazz’s father (Lowe) and leave her questioning Georgia’s practice. Additional probing later reveals that the women are unknowing participants in an experiment that could change the course of their lives forever.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Keanu Reeves is in talks to star in Hulu’s The Devil In The White City, an adaptation of Erik Larson’s 2003 book that tells the true story of two men, an architect and a serial killer, whose fates were forever linked by the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. It follows Daniel H. Burnham, a brilliant and fastidious architect racing to make his mark on the world, and Henry H. Holmes, a handsome and cunning doctor who fashioned his own pharmaceutical "Murder Castle" on fair grounds–a palace built to seduce, torture, and mutilate young women. It marks a significant step forward for the adaptation, which has been in various stages of development since Leonardo DiCaprio bought the film rights to the book in 2010 and previously set it up as a feature at Paramount with Martin Scorsese to direct. The project would mark Reeves’ first major U.S. TV role.

The Crown's Tobias Menzies will star in Manhunt, a new limited drama series for Apple TV+ from Lionstage and 3 Arts. He'll play Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln’s War Secretary and friend, who was nearly driven to madness by the need to catch assassin John Wilkes Booth and to carry out Lincoln’s legacy. The project is based on James Swanson’s book, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer.

The CW is expanding the cast for Season 2 of Kung Fu, its reboot of the classic series, adding Vanessa Yao, Annie Q., and JB Tadena in recurring roles. Following the explosive Season 1 finale, Season 2 picks up with Nicky Shen (Olivia Liang) and her family in a great place: Nicky’s been using her kung fu skills to keep Chinatown safe, and she and Henry (Eddie Liu) are only deeper in love with each other. Everything’s fine ... until the reemergence of villainous businessman, Russell Tan, and the surprise appearance of Nicky’s enigmatic cousin, Mia (Yao).

NCIS stars Wilmer Valderrama and Katrina Law will be visiting Vanessa Lachey and the rest of the NCIS: Hawai’i gang as part of a crossover special event airing via CBS on March 28. Details regarding the storyline are being kept under wraps by CBS, but according to Law, "Viewers can certainly expect an action-packed episode."

Channel 4’s foreign crime streaming service, Walter Presents, will debut four Scandinavian crime series between January and March 2022. First up is the Norwegian procedural, Outlier, which will air on Channel 4 from January 9. It will be followed by Cry Wolf (Denmark) starting January 30; The Truth Will Out season 2 (Sweden) on February 13; and Snow Angels (Sweden) on March 13.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Murder and Money," by Jacqueline Seewald, read by actor Larry Mattox

Wrong Place, Write Crime welcomed Sebastien Fitzek to talk about the English translation of Das Packet (The Package) and his new project, The Playlist.

Jason King returned to the Spybrary Podcast for his annual appearance to share his best espionage novels of 2021.

My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, chatted with Marcy McCreary about her latest novel, The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon.

On the first Red Hot Chili Writers episode of the new year, hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee looked back at 2021; took a look forward to 2022; and talked about Abir's "crime-writing teapot."