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

Amazon MGM Studios optioned the film rights to Elizabeth Rose Quinn’s unpublished novel, Follow Me, with Adele Lim in negotiations to write and direct. Follow Me is a dark thriller described as "Heathers meets The Stepford Wives at a mommy influencer retreat in Northern California. It’s a propulsive and witty novel, mixed with the scary social-commentary edge of Black Mirror."

Oscar winner Russell Crowe will re-team with his Unhinged director Derrick Borte on the action-thriller, Bear Country. Borte, alongside Daniel Forte (American Dreamer), wrote the screenplay based on the Thomas Perry novel, Strip. Crowe will play aging but formidable club owner, Manco Kapak, who has been robbed by a masked gunman. Now, his aspirations of selling his club and riding off into the sunset alongside his girlfriend appear more distant than ever. Cartel bosses are breathing down his neck and a young upstart has been posing as the new guy in town eager to purchase the club.

Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground prevailed in an auction for Dyersville, based on a script by Will Hettinger. Although the plot is mostly under wraps, it's said to be a fact-based crime thriller set in the Obamas’ old stomping grounds of Chicago. Hettinger has been a staff writer on the Netflix series Painkiller and the Starz series Hunting Wives, but this is his first feature.

Tom Berenger, Milo Gibson, Mark Dacascos, Henning Baum, Sol Rodriguez, and Patrick Cage are set to star in the crime-action film, The Sheriff, directed by Josh Tessier. Written by Tessier and actor Michael Edwards, the film is set in a rural town and follows a local sheriff (Edwards), as he pursues a recent homicide case that is seemingly linked to the death of his son five years prior.

Kiernan Shipka (Totally Killer) will star with Kiefer Sutherland and Krysten Ritter in the action-thriller, Stone Cold Fox. In the '80s-set revenge story, the defiant Fox (Shipka) breaks out of an abusive commune in search of her family, but when the queenpin (Ritter) kidnaps her little sister and sends a crooked cop (Sutherland) after her, Fox has no choice but to infiltrate the very place she escaped. Also starring are Lorenza Izzo (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Jamie Chung (Lovecraft Country) and Karen Fukuhara (The Boys).

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

In a competitive situation, Universal Television acquired the rights to Jana Monroe’s memoir, Hearts of Darkness: Serial Killers, The Behavioral Science Unit, And My Life As a Woman In The FBI to develop into a series. Filmmakers Susanna Fogel (Winner) and Julia Ruchman (The Walking Dead) will both write and executive produce, with Fogel serving as director. Hearts of Darkness follows Monroe and her astonishing life shaping law enforcement and intelligence analysis as she explores the cases that have stayed with her amid the obstacles she faced as a woman in the male-dominated Bureau.

Robin Wright will star in, direct, and serve as an executive producer of The Girlfriend, a series based on a novel by Michelle Frances. Olivia Cooke (House of the Dragon), Laurie Davidson (Mary and George) and Waleed Zuaiter (Gangs of London) also star in the series from Amazon MGM Studios and Imaginarium Productions. Wright will play Laura, a woman with a great career, a loving husband (Howard) and a close relationship with her son, Daniel (Davidson). Things take a turn when Daniel brings home his new girlfriend, Cherry (Cooke). After an uncomfortable first meeting, Laura grows convinced Cherry isn’t who she says she is, with Laura determined to do anything she has to in order to protect her son. As things go from bad to deadly, the questions mount: Is Cherry a manipulative social climber? Is Laura just paranoid and possessive? Or is the truth a matter of perspective?

Rafe Spall (Trying), Greg Kinnear (Black Bird), Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (The Lincoln Lawyer), and Hannah Emily Anderson (The Purge) round out the ensemble cast of Firebug, Apple’s upcoming drama series from Apple Studios and creator Dennis Lehane, which stars Taron Egerton. In addition to Egerton, the four join previously announced cast members Jurnee Smollett and John Leguizamo. Written by Lehane and loosely inspired by true events, Firebug will follow a troubled detective (Smollett) and an enigmatic arson investigator (Egerton) as they pursue the trails of two serial arsonists.

Niamh Algar (Mary & George) and Tom Hollander (Feud: Capote vs. The Swans) are set to lead the Sky thriller series Iris, about a code-breaking genius, from Luther creator Neil Cross. The project follows the titular character (Algar), a rootless and enigmatic genius who steals a code from charming philanthropist Cameron McIntyre (Hollander) and goes on the run. Armed only with her lethal intelligence and chameleonic charm, the clock is ticking for her to work out what the code could unleash before she is found. Joining the cast are newcomer Meréana Tomlinson (The Trials), Sacha Dhawan (Doctor Who), Maya Sansa (Good Morning Night), Peter Sullivan (Poldark), and Debi Mazar (Entourage).

Apple TV+ released a first-look at its upcoming limited seven-part series, Lady in the Lake, ahead of its premiere on Friday, July 19. The film is based on Laura Lippman’s bestselling novel of the same name and takes place in ’60s Baltimore. An unsolved murder pushes housewife and mother Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) to reinvent her life as an investigative journalist and sets her on a collision course with Cleo Sherwood (Moses Ingram), a hardworking woman juggling motherhood, many jobs, and a passionate commitment to advancing Baltimore’s Black progressive agenda.

The BBC has confirmed a release date for the crime drama Rebus, which will launch on Friday, May 17. The new series, based on the best-selling Inspector Rebus novels by Ian Rankin, re-imagines the iconic character John Rebus (Outlander's Richard Rankin) as a younger Detective Sergeant, drawn into a violent criminal conflict that turns personal when his brother Michael, a former soldier, crosses the line. The series will also star The Ipcress File's Brian Ferguson as Michael and Line of Duty's Lucie Shorthouse as Rebus’s investigation partner, Detective Constable Siobhan Clarke.

CSI: Miami is getting the docuseries treatment after CBS ordered an unscripted series based on its iconic crime drama. The Real CSI: Miami will feature real-life crime cases and the cutting-edge forensic science used to solve them. CSI Miami ran for ten seasons and 232 episodes between 2002 and 2012 and starred David Caruso as Lieutenant Horatio Caine.

After CBS announced its fall schedule last week, NBC followed suit this weekend. The "Chicago" trio of Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago PD returns with back-to-back episodes on Wednesday nights. Thursday nights will include the crime drama duo of Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU, followed by the missing-persons drama, Found (replacing the third Law & Order drama, Organized Crime, which is moving to Peacock for its upcoming fifth season).

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Speaking of Mysteries welcomed Tom Straw to talk about his latest novel, The Accidental Joe: The Top Secret Life of a Celebrity Chef, which blends murder, mirth, high-stakes espionage, gastronomic highs and lows, and killer locales, as it launches a new series featuring peripatetic bad boy chef, Sebastian Pike, and his CIA handler, Cammie Nova.

On the Cops and Writers podcast, Patrick J. O'Donnell chatted with the acclaimed crime-writing trio of Deborah Levison, T. M. Dunn, and Wendy Whitman, whose topics ranged from serial killers to domestic violence.

The latest episode of Red Hot Chili Writers discussed new thrillers by Abir Mukherjee and Imran Mahmood; loan sharks; and deadly Deliveroo drivers.

Paul Burke, who writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, and the European Literature Network, reviewed new crime fiction titles debuting in May for Crime Time FM.