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

Neal McDonough has signed on to produce and star opposite Dermot Mulroney in The Warrant: Breaker’s Law, a sequel to his 2020 film, The Warrant, which will see him reprise his role as Civil War hero and Sheriff John Breaker. The original film saw Breaker and his son reunite to arrest former Union Army friend, "The Saint," who became a fierce gang leader and whose raids threatened to bring the country back into conflict. In the new film set in the 1870s, Breaker is now a Federal Marshal, setting out with his loyal best friend, Deputy Marshall Bugle Bearclaw, on a mission to deliver a warrant for Henry Bronson, aka Dead-Eye, estranged twin brother of the notorious outlaw, Yule Bronson. Brent Christy is returning to direct the sequel, with Shea Sizemore returning as screenwriter.

Frank Grillo (Captain America; Cop Shop) is set to headline the thriller, Dirty, from Wonderfilm. Nick Vallelonga is directing the project, which is based on a script he wrote, although the plot details are being kept tightly under wraps. The film is currently in pre-production in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with principal photography to begin April 11. Vallelonga is best known for winning two Academy Awards and two Golden Globes for Original Screenplay and Best Picture for Green Book. He also directed the film, Stiletto, in which the seemingly random killings of an assassin puzzle her former lover, a wealthy Greek crime boss, as well as the detective following her rising body count.

Emmy-nominated actress Michelle Dockery is set to join the action thriller, Boy Kills World. The film already stars Bill Skarsgård, martial arts master Yayan Ruhian, Jessica Rothe, Andrew Koji, and Isaiah Mustafa. Moritz Mohr is set to make his feature directing debut on the project. The screenplay was written by Arend Remmers and Tyler Burton Smith and is described as "a dystopian fever dream action film that follows Boy, a deaf mute with a vibrant imagination. When his family is murdered, he is trained by a mysterious shaman to repress his childish imagination and become an instrument of death."

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Hulu has given a series order for the new mystery drama, Career Opportunities in Murder and Mayhem. Starring Violett Beane, Lauren Patten, Rahul Kohli, Angela Zhou, Hugo Diego Garcia, Pardis Saremi, and Mandy Patinkin, the show centers around solving a murder in a "post-fact world." According to the logline, the murder solving will be attempted while "sailing the Mediterranean on an ocean liner filled with the wealthy and powerful. Everyone on board is hiding something … but is one of them a killer? That’s what the world’s once greatest detective, Rufus Cotesworth (Patinkin), and his protégée (Beane) aim to discover."

Netflix has given a series order to the Shondaland murder-mystery drama, The Residence. Inspired by Kate Andersen Brower’s book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, the eight-episode series is described by the streamer as "a screwball whodunnit set in the upstairs, downstairs, and backstairs of the White House, among the eclectic staff of the world’s most famous mansion." Viewers can expect to see the following key elements: 132 rooms. 157 suspects. One dead body. One wildly eccentric detective. One disastrous State Dinner.

Oscar winner Geena Davis has been tapped as the co-lead for a CBS untitled mother-son legal drama pilot from Scott Prendergast, who wrote the script and executive produces. In the drama, despite their opposing personalities, a talented but directionless P.I., who is the black sheep of his family, begrudgingly agrees to work as the in-house investigator for his overbearing mother (Davis), a successful attorney reeling from the recent dissolution of her marriage.

Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad; Better Call Saul) is set to lead The Driver for AMC. The series is a remake of the BBC One miniseries starring The Walking Dead’s David Morrissey. The six-part AMC project stars Esposito as a taxi driver whose life is turned upside down when he agrees to chauffer a New Orleans-based Zimbabwean gangster notorious for exploiting undocumented immigrants at the U.S. southern ports. The 2014 British series similarly followed Morrissey as cabbie whose life is turned upside down when he agrees to be the driver for a criminal gang.

The Good Fight is getting another high-profile cast addition. Emmy winner André Braugher, coming off an eight-season run on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, is set as a series regular in the upcoming sixth season of the Paramount+ legal drama. Now in production, The Good Fight is slated to return this summer on the streaming service. Braugher, who also starred in Homicide, will play Ri’Chard Lane, a showman lawyer and rainmaker who is forced on Liz (Audra McDonald) as a new name partner. A force of nature, Ri’Chard is a wild mix of brilliance, geniality, religion, and joyful hedonism. In short, he’s a handful.

The Good Wife alum Alan Cumming is also headed to The Good Fight in a reprisal of his Eli Gold role. Cumming will appear in two episodes in Season 6 as Gold assists his daughter Marissa (Sarah Steele) when she embarks on her new career as a full-fledged lawyer.

Jill Eikenberry is set to guest star in ABC's drama pilot, L.A. Law, a revival of the iconic Steven Bochco legal drama, reprising her role as Ann Kelsey. Eikenberry starred on all eight seasons of the original NBC series as Kelsey, Associate/Partner in the firm, but in the pilot, Eikenberry’s Kelsey is now a judge. In the revival, the venerable law firm of McKenzie Brackman — now named Becker Rollins — reinvents itself as a litigation firm specializing in only the most high-profile, boundary-pushing, and incendiary cases. The pilot stars Blair Underwood and Corbin Bernsen, who are reprising their respective roles as Jonathan Rollins and Arnie Becker, as well as fellow new series regulars Hari Nef, Toks Olagundoye, Ian Duff, John Harlan Kim, Kacey Rohl, and Juliana Harkavy.

Greg Hovanessian will star alongside Matt Barr as a series regular in The CW’s Walker: Independence pilot. The new, one-hour project is a Walker origin story set in the late 1800s that follows Abby Walker, an affluent Bostonian whose husband is murdered before her eyes while on their journey out West. On her quest for revenge, Abby crosses paths with Hoyt Rawlins (Barr), a lovable rogue in search of purpose. Abby and Hoyt’s journey takes them to Independence, Texas, where they encounter diverse, eclectic residents running from their own troubled pasts and chasing their dreams. The newfound family will struggle with the changing world around them, while becoming agents of change themselves in a town where nothing is what it seems.

FX’s true crime thriller, Under the Banner of Heaven, has been given a premiere date of April 28 on Hulu. Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black created the series, inspired by the true crime bestseller from Jon Krakauer. It follows the events that led to the 1984 murder of Brenda Wright Lafferty (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her baby daughter in a suburb in Salt Lake Valley, Utah. Per the logline: As Detective Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield) investigates events that transpired within the Lafferty family, he uncovers buried truths about the origins of the LDS religion and the violent consequences of unyielding faith. Starring alongside Garfield and Edgar-Jones are Sam Worthington, Denise Gough, Wyatt Russell, Billy Howle, Gil Birmingham, Adelaide Clemens, Rory Culkin, Seth Numrich, Chloe Pirrie, and Sandra Seacat.

A new trailer was released for the spinoff, Bosch: Legacy, premiering Friday, May 6 on Amazon’s free streaming service, IMDb TV. With Titus Welliver, Madison Lintz, and Mimi Rogers reprising their roles as Harry Bosch, his daughter Madeline, and top-notch attorney Honey "Money" Chandler, the offshoot follows Bosch as he embarks on the next chapter of his career as a private investigator and finds himself working with his one-time enemy Honey. His first job calls him to the estate of ailing billionaire Whitney Vance, where Bosch is tasked with finding Vance’s only potential heir. Along the way, Bosch finds himself clashing with powerful figures who have a vested interest in the heir not being found. Meanwhile, Maddie is following in her dad’s footsteps as a rookie patrol officer and grapples with what kind of cop she wants to be.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring an excerpt from Mimi Gets A Clue by Jennifer J. Chow, read by actor Reese Herron.

The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with crime writer Karin Slaughter.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club highlighted books that feature strong women for Women's History month.

Read or Dead discussed short reads to meet your reading goals, reading during lunch, and everything in between.

On the Unlikeable Female Characters podcast, hosts Kristen and Layne welcomed Kellye Garrett to discuss her new domestic suspense novel, Like a Sister.

Wrong Place, Write Crime had a double feature with AB Patterson, noir author and former cop in Australia, followed by Oregonian and eclectic author, Bill Cameron.

All About Agatha interviewed Alex Michaelides, author of The Silent Patient and The Maidens, about his books, his passion for Agathie Christie, and the craft of writing mysteries.

Listening to the Dead profiled the investigation into the case against murderer Colin Pitchfork, the first case where DNA screening was used.

Crime Time FM welcomed Robert J. Lloyd to chat about his philosophical historical crime novel, Bloodless Boy, scientist/detective Robert Hooke, and getting published with a helping hand from Christopher Fowler.