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

Last week, I noted that Oppenheimer's Oscar-winner, Cillian Murphy, was gearing up to reprise his starring role in Peaky Blinders for a follow-up film, and this week comes news that he'll also star in the Universal Pictures adaptation of the Mark A. Bradley book, Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America. It tells the epic true story of Tony Boyle, a corrupt union leader in the late 1960s in the coal mines of Pennsylvania who murdered a rival and was taken down by the lawyer son, Chip Yablonski (Murphy), of the slain coal miner. A labor attorney, Chip Yablonski made it his life mission to get justice for his father which led to the union boss being indicted on three counts of murder, convicted in 1974, and sentenced to three life terms in prison.

Scott Derrickson has been set to direct a new adaptation of Davis Grubb’s classic 1953 novel, The Night of the Hunter for Universal Pictures, working from his script written with C. Robert Cargill, his longtime collaborator on The Black Phone, Doctor Strange, and other projects. The Night of the Hunter revolves around Harry Powell, a serial killer posing as a preacher, who marries a widow solely to gain access to her deceased husband’s hidden fortune. Powell’s stepchildren, John and Pearl, become the targets of his relentless pursuit as he seeks the money hidden by their father. An instant bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award, The Night of the Hunter was previously adapted into a classic 1955 film directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum.

Sony Pictures has acquired Darren Aronofsky’s crime thriller, Caught Stealing, which will star Austin Butler. The film follows Hank Thompson, a burned-out former baseball player, as he’s unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of '90s New York City. Charlie Huston will pen the script, which is based on his book of the same name. Oscar-nominated director Aronofsky added, "I am excited to be teaming up with my old friends at Sony Pictures to bring Charlie’s adrenaline-soaked roller coaster ride to life. I can’t wait to start working with Austin and my family of NYC filmmakers."

After the Hunt, from screenwriter Nora Garrett, has landed at Amazon MGM Studios with Julia Roberts attached to star and Luca Guadagnino on board to direct. The film is an intense dramatic thriller about a college professor (Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil levels an accusation against one of her colleagues and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light. Since landing at Imagine Entertainment, which has been developing it for some time, the project has been one of the more talked-about scripts in recent memory, with several agents telling Deadline it’s one of the better scripts they’ve read since the writers strike ended.

Amazon MGM Studios and Lionsgate made it official that a sequel to the Paul Feig-directed thriller, A Simple Favor, is in the works. According to Amazon, Simple Favor 2 brings back Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) and Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) as they head to the beautiful island of Capri, Italy, for Emily’s extravagant wedding to a rich Italian businessman. Amazon added, "Along with the glamorous guests, expect murder and betrayal to RSVP for a wedding with more twists and turns than the road from the Marina Grande to the Capri town square.”

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

Netflix has announced the new project, The Seven Dials Mystery, based on the Agatha Christie novel, with a script penned by Chris Chibnall (Broadchurch, Doctor Who), and Chris Sweeney (The Tourist, Back to Life) set to direct. Originally lambasted by critics on the book’s original release, The Seven Dials Mystery features neither of Christie’s better-known detectives, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. Instead, the author returned to a character first introduced in her 1925 book, The Secret of Chimneys, to focus on the young aristocrat and socialite, Lady "Bundle" Brent. Resourceful and headstrong, Brent has often been described as a quintessential 1920s "flapper," known equally for her appeal to the opposite sex and her penchant for fast driving. The Seven Dials Mystery was previously adapted as a 1981 TV movie starring Cheryl Campbell as Bundle Brent.

Elisabeth Moss and Kerry Washington are set to executive produce and star in Imperfect Women, a new Apple TV+ limited series based on Araminta Hall’s novel of the same name. The psychological thriller, which "examines a crime that shatters the lives of a decades-long friendship of three women, is a mystery complicated by perspective that explores guilt and retribution, love and betrayal, and the compromises we make that alter our lives irrevocably. As the investigation unravels, so does the truth about how even the closest relationships can change over time."

Amazon is bringing two of its entertainment divisions closer together in the world of podcasts, film, and TV, with Amazon MGM Studios adapting a number of Audible podcasts for TV and film as part of a deal to co-develop and co-produce projects. Among them will be the podcast heist drama Nut Jobs, developed by Suits duo Aaron Korsh and Rick Muirragui, which takes listeners down a rabbit-hole of crime syndicates, stolen identities and private investigators; and also Oracle, based on the podcast series about an FBI psychic, who helps solve abductions and homicides by touching those close to the missing persons, which was written by Andrew Pyper and performed by Joshua Jackson.

Lifetime announced its latest true crime project, Gaslit By My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story, which will star One Tree Hill actors Jana Kramer and Austin Nichols. Morgan Metzer (Kramer) and Rodney (Nichols) were childhood sweethearts who were married by the time Morgan turned 21. But after Rodney loses his job and goes into debt, tensions begin to arise for this picture-perfect American family. Rodney starts to convince his wife that their fights are the result of her drinking — even if she’d only had one — and that she pushed him down the stairs in a blackout rage. Once they separate, Morgan’s life begins to turn around. At least that’s the case until a masked intruder breaks into Morgan’s house and assaults her.

Hulu has opted not to renew the murder mystery series Death and Other Details for a second season, following its inability to break into Nielsen’s weekly Top 10 streaming ratings. Written by Mike Weiss and Heidi Cole McAdams, the visually stylish series stars Mandy Patinkin as "the world’s once greatest detective," Rufus Cotesworth, and Violett Beane as his protégée, Imogene, as they team up to solve a murder on a luxury ocean liner filled with the wealthy and powerful while sailing the Mediterranean.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, Scott Simon talked with best-selling suspense author Don Winslow about what he says is his final novel, City in Ruins.

On Crime Time FM, Sarah Moorhead chatted with Stuart Turton about his new high concept thriller, The Last Murder at the End of the World, and how the old adage of "writing what you know" is rubbish.

The latest episode of Red Hot Chili Writers featured an interview with crime writer Harriet Tyce about her new book A Lesson in Cruelty and also some pontification on Chaucer's unfinished Canterbury Tales.

On the BBC's The Life Scientific podcast, Dr. Sheila Willis, a forensic scientist who was Director General of Forensic Science Ireland for many years, discussed using science to help solve crime.

On another BBC podcast, The Infinite Monkey Cage, Robin Ince and physicist Brian Cox heard how we could all be potential killers, and discovered how fleas and foliage could help us solve murders.

The Pick Your Poison podcast investigated how you might accidentally kill a patient with intubation; a drug Kafka called the only remedy against the misery of being; and the compound that might’ve played a role in Rasputin’s influence over the Romanovs.