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 Will Smith is attached to star in Sugar Bandits, which follows a former Special Forces solider who joins an elite, vigilante squad aiming to wipe out the drug trade in Boston, but soon learns things are not what they seem. The action-crime project is based on the screenplay and novel Devils In Exile by Chuck Hogan. Smith won’t play the lead but will co-star in the movie in an as-yet undisclosed role.

Danielle Deadwyler (Till) and director Jaume Collet-Serra (Black Adam) are re-teaming for the thriller, The Woman in the Yard, based on a screenplay by Sam Stefanak. (Collet-Serra and Deadwyler had previously collaborated in the upcoming Netflix film, Carry On.) Although plot details have been scarce, the project allegedly revolves around a grieving widow who is compelled to confront her own past to safeguard her two children when she encounters a menacing stranger at her doorstep.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

The CW has ordered a new original scripted drama, Sherlock & Daughter, starring David Thewlis (Fargo). The mystery thriller puts Sherlock Holmes (Thewlis) out of his comfort zone, mysteriously unable to investigate a sinister case without risking the lives of his closest friends. Enter young American Amelia (The Originals). After her mother’s mysterious murder, she learns that her missing father might be the legendary detective. Despite wildly different backgrounds and attitudes, the pair must work together to solve a global conspiracy, crack her mother’s murder, and find out for sure if she really is Sherlock’s daughter.

FX has handed a pilot order to The Sensitive Kind, a high-profile drama project starring and executive produced by Ethan Hawke and created and executive produced by Sterlin Harjok, who was showrunner of the network’s acclaimed series, Reservation Dogs. The logline doesn't give away too many details other than the noir tale is set in Tulsa and centers on a guy (Hawke) who "knows too much."

Arrow star Stephen Amell is set as the lead in the NBC drama pilot, Suits L.A., a new extension of the Suits universe from Aaron Korsh, creator and writer of the original series. Suits L.A. centers on Ted Black (Amell), a former federal prosecutor from New York, who has reinvented himself representing the most powerful clients in Los Angeles. His firm is at a crisis point, and in order to survive he must embrace a role he held in contempt his entire career. Suits: L.A. is not be a reboot or revival but a brand extension in the vein of the CSI and NCIS franchises featuring new characters in a new location.

NBCUniversal is giving straight-to-series orders to three new original series including an untitled espionage techno-thriller series from James Wan (The Conjuring Universe, M3GAN), which stars Simu Liu, and two limited series, All Her Fault and Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy. The untitled Wan/Liu project is set five minutes in the future when first-generation American intelligence analyst Alexander Hale (Liu) realizes his brain has been hacked, giving the perpetrators access to everything he sees and hears. Caught between his shadowy agency and the unknown hackers, he must maintain a performance 24/7 to flush out who’s responsible and prove where his allegiance lies. All Her Fault is a suburban-thriller limited series based on the novel of the same name by Andrea Mara; and Devil In Disguise: John Wayne Gacy peels back the twisted layers of serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s life and the stories of his victims.

Leo Woodall is leading the Apple TV+ thriller, Prime Target, opposite Quintessa Swindell, with Ridley Scott among the exec producers. The show is created by Sherlock scribe Steve Thompson and follows a math graduate on the verge of succeeding in finding a pattern in prime numbers, which would hold the key to every computer in the world. Soon he begins to realize an unseen enemy is trying to destroy his idea before it’s even born, which throws him into the orbit of Taylah Sanders (Swindell), a female NSA agent, who’s been tasked with watching and reporting on various mathematicians’ behavior. Together they start to piece together the troubling conspiracy.

NBC has given a pilot order to Grosse Pointe Garden Society, a long-in-the-works drama that follows four members of a suburban garden club, all from different walks of life, who get caught up in murder and mischief as they struggle to make their conventional lives bloom.

HBO released a new trailer for the upcoming series, The Sympathizer, which will debut on HBO and Max on April 14. The limited series is an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of a communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War. Hoa Xuande plays the half-French, half-Vietnamese communist at the center of the story, while Robert Downey Jr. plays multiple roles, including that of the young man’s handler.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On Crime Time FM, Tony Kent chatted with Paul Burke about his new thriller, The Shadow Network; Dempsey & Devlin; Chiltern Kills; working on TV true crime, and more.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with Canadian mystery writer Nita Prose; discussed the advent of dog poop DNA testing; and mused on the recent advances in cold fusion science.

Debbi Mack's guest on the latest episode of The Crime Cafe was author Leanne Kale Sparks, who writes a series of thrillers featuring FBI agent Kendall Beck, set in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Frank Zafiro spoke with NYT bestselling author, Meg Gardiner, about her time as a lawyer; her stint on Jeopardy; how Stephen King influenced her career; the three different thriller series she’s written, and her experience co-authoring Heat 2 with Michael Mann.

Meet the Thriller Author interviewed Lisa Regan, bestselling author of the Detective Josie Quinn series, as well as several other crime fiction titles.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze podcast episode featured the mystery short story, "Caught By the Last Star," written by Nikki Knight and read by actor Amelia Ryan.

The latest Pick Your Poison podcast investigated a class of drugs dangerous enough to have been used by a serial killer nurse but are also used in cough drops.