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

Oscar winner Helen Mirren is set to star as celebrated author Patricia Highsmith in the new movie, Switzerland, with filmmaker and celebrated music video director, Anton Corbijn, on board to direct. In Switzerland, Highsmith’s late-life solitude in the Swiss Alps is interrupted by Edward, a young literary agent sent by the writer’s publishing company to convince her to pen one last novel in her wildly popular Ripley series (which includes the classic The Talented Mr. Ripley). Highsmith uses her famously macabre imagination to scare Edward away, but before they know it, a collaboration ensues, leaving the world they’ve constructed indistinguishable from their own. The script comes from Melbourne-based playwright, screenwriter, and novelist, Joanna Murray-Smith, based on her play of the same name.

As his next project, actor-turned-filmmaker, Alex Winter, is tackling the murder mystery, The Adults, starring Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld), Josh Gad (Avenue 5), and Anthony Carrigan (Barry). The film, penned by novelist Michael M.B. Galvin (who has previously adapted his own works Fat Kid Rules the World and Freak Talks About Sex for the big screen) follows siblings Megan (Wood) and Nathan (Gad), who are barely hanging on in present-day America. Their lives are completely upended when they discover a dead body long buried in their parent’s basement, sending them down a rabbit hole of crime and murder.

Two-time Oscar winner, Anthony Hopkins, will team with Top Gun: Maverick’s Glen Powell in Locked, a remake of the Argentinian action thriller, 4X4, with David Yarovesky set to direct, and Michael Arlen Ross (Oracle) writing the script. Locked is described as "an intense, character-driven thriller about a thief who breaks into a luxury SUV, only to realize that he’s stumbled into a complex and deadly trap set by a mysterious figure." 

Liam Neeson (Taken, Schindler’s List) is set to re-team with director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) on the upcoming thriller, The Riker’s Ghost. Neeson will play a convict set for release who is forced to break a terrorist out of prison. Sean O’Keefe (Spenser Confidential) and Brian Rudnick (Dungeons & Dragons) wrote the script. Jordan said of the project, "This is a unique take on the prison escape. A bare knuckle ride from incarceration to freedom, by someone who just wants to finish his term."

Netflix has released the official trailer for Luther: The Fallen Sun, its long-in-the-works Luther stand-alone follow-up movie that returns Idris Elba as John Luther, the complicated detective behind the crime drama that ran for five seasons on the BBC. The plot: A gruesome serial killer is terrorizing London while brilliant but disgraced detective John Luther sits behind bars. Haunted by his failure to capture the cyber psychopath who now taunts him, Luther decides to break out of prison to finish the job by any means necessary. Andy Serkis also stars as the tech mogul serial killer, David Robey.

Bridgerton actress, Phoebe Dynevor, will lead the thriller, Witchita Libra, as a woman trying to solve a dark historic crime that tore apart her family and rural Kansas hometown. The triple murder caused her to flee to Chicago and start a new life. A decade later, she is drawn back home after her brother’s death to decode a cryptic letter he left behind, suggesting the wrong man was charged with the crime and that an anonymous missing woman could clear his name.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta books are finally being adapted for the small screen as a series, starring Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in the title role and Oscar nominee Jamie Lee Curtis as the famous forensic pathologist’s flighty sister, Dorothy. The drama, from writer-showrunner Liz Sarnoff (Barry) and Blumhouse Television, is reportedly nearing a two-season straight-to-series order at Prime Video. Kidman’s Kay Scarpetta is a brilliant forensic pathologist, inspired by former Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Marcella Farinelli Fierro, who uses forensic technology to solve crimes.

Ripley, an upcoming drama starring Andrew Scott, was initially scheduled for streaming on Showtime but has instead found a new home at Netflix. The limited series from The Night Of’s Steven Zaillian, which is based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling quintet of Tom Ripley novels, is still targeting a late 2023 or early 2024 launch. The eight-episode Ripley, based primarily on the The Talented Mr. Ripley novel, was designed as a limited series, but there is a possibility to go beyond the first installment if it’s a hit. Ripley follows Tom Ripley (Scott), a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, who is hired by a wealthy man to try to convince his vagabond son, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), who is living a comfortable, trust-funded ex-pat life in Italy, to return home. Tom’s acceptance of the job is the first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder. Dakota Fanning will play Marge Sherwood, an American living in Italy who suspects darker motives underlie Tom’s affability.

Expanding TV universes are definitely a hot trend at the moment. Bosch is the latest example following its initial spin-off, Bosch: Legacy, as two more police dramas inspired by the work of bestselling author Michael Connelly are in development at Amazon Studios. The first, the "Untitled J. Edgar" project, follows Harry Bosch’s former partner, Detective Jerry Edgar, who is tapped for an undercover FBI mission in Little Haiti, Miami. Jamie Hector, who starred opposite Titus Welliver on the original Bosch series, is in talks to reprise his role in the offshoot. The second drama, the "Untitled Renee Ballard" project, centers around a character that has not appeared on the two Bosch series to date, Detective Renee Ballard, who is tasked with running the LAPD’s new cold case division. Beyond simply investigating unsolved crimes, Renee is dedicated to bringing credibility to the department and justice to the community. Having learned from retired ally and mentor Harry Bosch, Renee does things her way – solving cases in unconventional ways while navigating the politics of being a woman on the rise in the LAPD.

It appears that the Dexter franchise is also expanding with the potential addition of three new series. Alongside the currently titled Dexter: Origins series, which will follow a young Dexter Morgan as he transitions into the notorious serial killer he would eventually become, Showtime also announced it is developing a new version of Dexter: New Blood, which centers on Dexter’s son Harrison as he reckons with his father’s sinister past. The streamer is also considering another Dexter prequel series about the Trinity Killer, focusing on the makings of the notorious serial killer played by John Lithgow in the original series.

Showtime has given a straight-to-series order to the political thriller series, The Department, with George Clooney attached to direct. The show is based on the French series, Le Bureau des Legendes. Per the official logline, the original show centers on "the daily life and missions of agents within France’s principal external security service," specifically the "Bureau of Legends," responsible for training and handling deep-cover agents on long-term missions in areas with French interests.

Prime Video has renewed The Terminal List, the conspiracy thriller headlined by Chris Pratt, for a second season and also ordered an untitled prequel series focusing on fan-favorite Ben Edwards, portrayed by Taylor Kitsch. Season 2 of The Terminal List, whose first installment was based on Jack Carr’s bestseller of the same name, will be based on Carr’s novel True Believer. The untitled prequel is described as an elevated espionage thriller that takes viewers on Edwards’ journey from Navy SEAL to CIA paramilitary operator, exploring the darker side of warfare and the human cost that comes with it.

Hugh Laurie (The Night Manager and House, M.D.) is headed to Tehran after the Israeli espionage drama was renewed for a third season by Apple TV+. He’ll play a South African nuclear inspector. The show follows Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan) as a hacker agent who infiltrates Iran’s capital Tehran under a false identity.

Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Peaky Blinders) has been tapped to star opposite Annette Bening in Peacock’s upcoming limited series, Apples Never Fall, based on author Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel. Apples Never Fall centers on the Delaneys, who from the outside appear to be an enviably contented family. Former tennis coaches Joy (Bening) and Stan (Neill) are parents to four adult children. After decades of marriage, they finally have sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. But after Joy disappears, her children are forced to re-examine their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh eyes.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "Thrilled No More" by Chuck Brownman, read by actor Theodore Fox.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured the Mike O’Shea Series by Desmond P. Ryan, who served as a Detective with the Toronto Police Service for three decades before turning his hand to writing crime fiction.

On the latest Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's podcast, Susan Breen read her story from the May/June 2022 issue, "Detective Anne Boelyn," where she brings one of the most iconic figures in English history to life.

Katja Ivar spoke with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about her new novel Trouble, the third Hella Mauzer mystery; growing up in Russia and the US; Finland; and women in the police force.