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
Paramount Pictures is set to remake the acclaimed South Korean crime thriller, The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil, with original star Don Lee (aka Ma Dong-seok) reprising his lead role as a gang boss looking for redemption. Lee is also part of the producer team that includes Sylvester Stallone and Braden Aftergood under their production banner, Balboa Productions. The original film centered on the fierce and feared gang boss, Jang Dong-su (Lee), who barely survives a violent attack by an elusive serial killer. With his reputation damaged, the only way for Jang to restore his image is to find the attacker and exact revenge. He thus forms an unlikely partnership with a local detective to catch the sadistic criminal simply known as "K."
Grindstone Entertainment Group has acquired North American rights to the crime drama, One Day as a Lion, written by and starring Scott Caan (Hawaii Five-0), from Roxwell Films. The project is currently in production in Oklahoma and boasts an all-star ensemble that also includes Academy Award-winner J.K. Simmons, Frank Grillo, Michael Carmen Pitt, Marianne Rendón, Taryn Manning, and Virginia Madsen. The story centers on Jackie Powers (Caan), who is down on his luck and desperate to save his son from juvenile delinquency, a fate he knows all too well. Jackie handles collections for Dom Lorenzo (Pitt) and mob outfit boss Pauly Russo (Grillo). When he fails to collect from local cowboy legend, Walter Boggs (Simmons), he finds himself on the run with waitress-turned-hostage, Lola Brisky (Rendón). Forging an unlikely alliance, Jackie poses as Lola’s fiancé in the hopes of satisfying the will of her terminally ill, serial divorcee mother, Valerie (Madsen), to finance Lola’s new life and a criminal defense lawyer for Jackie’s son.
Chris Pratt is in talks to star in and reteam with the Russo Brothers (Avengers: Infinity War) on Electric State, an adaptation of the illustrated novel by Simon Stålenhag. Millie Bobby Brown is already attached to star, with Avengers writing duo, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, penning the script. Set in an alternative future, Electric State centers on a teenage girl (Brown) who realizes that a strange but sweet robot has been sent to her by her missing brother. She and the robot set out to find the brother in an imaginative world of humans mixing with robots, uncovering a grand conspiracy in the process.
Reba McEntire will star with fellow Reba alum, Melissa Peterman, in The Hammer, a Lifetime movie inspired by the life of traveling circuit judge, Kim Wanker. McEntire’s real-life partner, Rex Linn (CSI: Miami), and Kay Shioma Metchie (Totally Normal) also star. Per the logline, the film follows Kim Wheeler (McEntire), an outspoken, firecracker lawyer who is appointed Judge of the 5th District of Nevada and is one of the few traveling judges left in America. After the reigning judge dies under suspicious circumstances, Kim finds herself covering a circuit that stretches between Las Vegas and Reno—a rugged, often desolate area where anything and everything can happen. With gavel in hand, she lays down the law with a no-nonsense brand of justice, that quickly earns her the nickname "The Hammer." As the investigation of the former judge’s death heats up, Kim’s sister Kris (Peterman), who runs the local brothel, suddenly becomes the prime suspect, and Kim must work even harder to make certain the appropriate justice is served.
James Bond producer, Barbara Broccoli, has revealed that it will be "at least two years" before the next 007 movie begins filming, and that the task of finding an actor to replace Daniel Craig hasn’t begun. Broccoli said, "Nobody’s in the running. We’re working out where to go with him, we’re talking that through. There isn’t a script and we can’t come up with one until we decide how we’re going to approach the next film because, really, it’s a reinvention of Bond. We’re reinventing who he is and that takes time.”
Searchlight Pictures released a trailer for the whimsical murder mystery, See How They Run, starring a detective duo played by Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan. The film opens in theaters Sept. 30. The first footage introduces viewers to Rockwell’s seasoned Inspector Stoppard and Ronan’s rookie Constable Stalker. The pair team up to solve a murder most foul in London’s West End theater district during the 1950s, investigating the seedy underbelly of England’s glamorous of artists and turning over a litany of brash, creative suspects. David Oyelowo, Adrien Brody, and Ruth Wilson also feature in prominent roles.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Magnum P.I. has been saved after a deal was struck with NBC for new episodes of the action drama starring Jay Hernandez, following its cancellation by CBS last month. The twenty episodes will be split into two seasons with an option for more. Now that an agreement on the order has been reached, the cast is being picked up and finalizing deals to return for the new seasons. Perdita Weeks, Zachary Knighton, Stephen Hill, Tim Kang, and Amy Hill starred alongside Hernandez in the CBS series. Showrunner Eric Guggenheim is also expected to return.
The BBC has greenlit a second season of the whodunnit thriller, Sherwood, immediately after the conclusion of the first. Starring David Morrissey (The Walking Dead) and Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread), Sherwood is a murder mystery six-parter inspired by events that took place in the Nottinghamshire mining village where Graham grew up. The second series will once again take inspiration from the pit villages and surrounding towns, continuing the theme of examining the lives and legacy of those governed by Britain’s industrial past and especially the mid-1980s miner’s strikes that rocked the nation.
CSI fan favorite, Wallace Langham, will join HBO’s Perry Mason in the second season, recurring as Melville Phipps, a Los Angeles native and attorney for a very wealthy oil baroness. Here’s the logline for season 2 of the drama that stars Matthew Rhys in the title role: "Months after the end of the Dodson trial, Perry's (Matthew Rhys) moved off the farm, [and] he’s even traded his leather jacket for a pressed suit. It’s the worst year of the Depression, and Perry and Della (Juliet Rylance) have set the firm on a safer path pursuing civil cases instead of the tumultuous work that criminal cases entail. Unfortunately, there isn’t much work for Paul (Chris Chalk) in wills and contracts, so he’s been out on his own. An open-and-closed case overtakes the city of Los Angeles, and Perry’s pursuit of justice reveals that not everything is always as it seems."
Ravi Patel is set to recur in the FX limited series, Justified: City Primeval in the role of Rick Newley. The series is a spinoff of FX’s hit Justified and is inspired by the Elmore Leonard crime novel, City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. Seven years following the end of Justified, the limited series returns to once again follow U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (played by original series star Timothy Olyphant) after he left Kentucky for his new home base in Miami. The new series will find Raylan balancing life as a marshal and part-time father of 14-year-old Willa, who will be played by Olyphant’s real-life daughter, Vivian. A chance encounter on a Florida highway sends him to Detroit where he crosses paths with Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook), aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent sociopath who’s already slipped through the fingers of Detroit’s finest once and wants to do so again. Other previously announced cast members include Aunjanue Ellis, Adelaide Clemens, Vondie Curtis Hall, Marin Ireland, Victor Williams, and Norbert Leo Butz.
Michaela Coel, John Turturro, and Paul Dano have joined the cast of Prime Video’s TV reboot of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, although their roles are being kept under wraps. They join previously announced Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, who star in the title roles in the series from Amazon Studios. The project is a reboot of New Regency’s 2005 Doug Liman-directed action comedy film that starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a bored married couple who are surprised to learn that they are both assassins hired by competing agencies to kill each other.
Scandinavia’s leading streamer, Viaplay, has ordered End of Summer, a psychological thriller based on Anders de la Motte’s bestselling Swedish novel of the same name. Jens Jonsson (Young Wallander) and Henrik Georgsson (The Bridge) are on board to direct the series, with Björn Carlström and Stefan Thunberg (Wallander) as head writers. The show opens on a summer evening in 1984 when a 5-year-old boy vanishes in rural southern Sweden. The police investigation fails to find the truth, leaving behind rumors, suspicion, and a grieving family. Twenty years later, the boy’s older sister Vera is leading a group therapy session in Stockholm, when a young man describes a strangely familiar childhood memory of a disappearance. A shaken Vera travels home to her fractured family to uncover, once and for all, what really happened in the summer that never ended.
Marc Cherry’s anthology series, Why Women Kill, will not get a third installment, after all. The Paramount+ drama was renewed for a third season in December and was firming up its lead cast with big-name actors in negotiations to star when the decision was made to axe the program. The abrupt decision on the eve of production is surprising as Nicole Clemens, President of Paramount+ Original Scripted Series, touted the series’ strong Season 2 performance in the Season 3 renewal announcement, revealing that it ranked "within the top 10 series on Paramount+ in terms of both overall engagement and new subscriber acquisition." Set in 1949, Season 2 explored what it means to be beautiful, the hidden truth behind the façades people present to the world, the effects of being ignored and overlooked by society, and the lengths one woman will go in order to finally belong. Each season of the series featured a different set of characters, with the first installment starring Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny were interviewed by CBS News about their co-authored thriller, State of Terror.
The latest episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with graphic novelist and crime writer, Fabian Nicieza, whose latest novel is The Self-Made Widow.
On Read or Dead, Katie and Nusrah talked about mystery and suspense reads to keep Pride alive all year long.
On the Queer Writers of Crime podcast, David S. Pederson, Lev Raphael, and Brad Shreve offered suggestions for your reading pleasure.
On Wrong Place, Write Crime, special guest co-host, Colin Conway, joined regular host, Frank Zafiro, for part two of an interview with Mark Bergin, who talked about his short story work and his stint at teaching. Also, there were book recommendations for your summer reads from a number of previous guests.
Jack Lutz chatted with CrimeTime FM host, Paul Burke, about his new novel, London in Black; dystopian murder mysteries; London's past; thriller pace; Cleopatra's Needle; and a guest appearance by Jack's Mum's cat.
My Favorite Detective Stories welcomed Edith Maxwell, writer, blogger, and long-time member of the Society of Friends (Quakers). She's the author of several cozy mystery series, including the Agatha-winning historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries.
The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine podcast series featured an Independence Day story by an award-winning writer for the Las Vegas Sun who made his fiction debut in EQMM’s Department of First Stories. Just in time for July 4th, Michael Grimala reads from his story "A Trunk Full of Illegal Fireworks," from the July/August 2021 issue of EQMM.
All About Agatha interviewed Ruth Ware about her new psychological crime thriller out this summer, which may be "her most Christie-ish yet."
