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

The Peaky Blinders movie is officially moving forward, with Netflix giving the go-ahead to a feature film that will star Oscar winner Cillian Murphy in a return to the iconic role of street gang leader Tommy Shelby. Plot details and further casting are being kept under wraps, although Peaky creator Steven Knight has previously told Deadline a movie story would be set during World War II. The original BBC television drama series premiered in September 2013 and presents a fictional story in which the Peaky Blinders (an actual street gang from early 20th century) contend in the underworld with the Birmingham Boys and the Sabini gang in post-World War I Birmingham's Small Heath area.

The murder investigation of Scott Johnson, which highlighted a slew of homophobic killings in Australia in the 1980s, is to be explored in a new feature film. Nicholas Verso (Boys In The Trees) is writing and directing The Surface of Venus for Fremantle and Invention Studios. Scott Johnson, a young gay American man who had recently moved to Australia, was found dead at the bottom of a cliff near Sydney in 1988. Although the case was initially ruled a suicide by Australian police, Scott’s brother Steve didn’t believe it – and spent the next 35 years on the quest for justice for Scott and the truth behind his death. This exposed a massive and decades-long cover-up and a guilty conviction for the man who pushed Scott off the cliff only last year, in 2023.

Germany’s ZDF Studios has teamed up with Iceland’s ACT4 to develop the Nordic crime thriller, Big Brother, based on the award-winning debut novel, Stóri Bródir, by Icelandic author Skuli Sigurdsson. A tale of revenge and justice, Big Brother centers on a mysterious figure in black who, every full moon, viciously attacks a person before vanishing into the night. The victims, all unpunished sexual offenders, are carefully selected. A detective and an investigative journalist team up to solve these crimes, while the story also unfolds from the perspective of this enigmatic assailant, who sees himself as an agent of justice for the victims failed by society.

Netflix is developing a feature adaptation of None of This Is True, the psychological thriller novel from bestselling author Lisa Jewell, with Eleanor Burgess (Perry Mason) tapped to pen the script. The story follows popular podcaster Alix Summer, who has a chance meeting with Josie Fair on their shared birthday. Since she was a teenager, Josie has been controlled by a husband nearly thirty years her senior, while Alix has hit a creative roadblock with her popular podcast amid frustrations with her husband's drinking. Alix decides to feature Josie's story on her podcast, but the more Alix hears, the darker the story becomes and the closer that darkness nears her own doorstep.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

The BBC and BritBox International have signed Oscar-winner Anjelica Huston to lead the cast of their latest Agatha Christie adaptation, Towards Zero, with Huston playing the aunt of lead character Nevile Strange (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). The three-part series concerns a murder mystery surrounding a recently divorced British tennis player holidaying at his aristocratic aunt's house on the south coast of England in the 1930s. Huston joins a cast that includes Jackie Clune (Motherland), Grace Doherty (Call the Midwife), Jack Farthing (Rain Dogs), Khalil Gharbia (Mary & George), Adam Hugill (Sherwood), Mimi Keene (Sex Education), Clarke Peters (The Wire), Emmy winner Matthew Rhys (The Americans) and Oliver Award-winner Anjana Vasan (Black Mirror: Demon 79).

James Rollins’s bestselling Sigma Force techno-thriller novels are getting the small screen treatment. A television adaptation of the book series is in development from Absentia creator Matt Cirulnick, Amazon MGM Studios, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way Productions, Oakhurst Entertainment and Talaria Media. Sigma Force is a globe-trotting thriller series centered around a top secret U.S. Government program made up of Special Forces operatives They leverage expert military and scientific training to handle global counter-terrorism efforts and investigate scientific matters that could pose a threat to the United States.

Prime Video has greenlit Countdown, a thriller drama series from One Chicago veteran Derek Haas, with Supernatural alum Jensen Ackles attached to star. The project, from Amazon MGM Studios, has received a 13-episode order, somewhat rare for a streaming series. Countdown starts following a suspicious murder in broad daylight, which leads to LAPD officer Mark Meachum (Ackles) being recruited to join a secret task force of undercover agents from all branches of law enforcement to investigate. But as the truth of a more sinister plot comes into focus, the team must overcome their conflicting personal agendas to unite and save a city of millions.

Rochelle Aytes is set for a series regular role on Watson, based on Dr. John Watson of the Sherlock Holmes universe. Aytes will play Dr. Mary Morstan, one of the best surgeons on the East Coast, and the Medical Director of the hospital. She is equally adept at being a voice of reason for and serving reality checks to her ex-husband, Dr. Watson (Morris Chestnut). She has great respect for Watson and, while she appreciates his sleuthing when it comes to medical mysteries, she can also become irritated by his unorthodox approach to the business of medicine. Aytes previously starred in S.W.A.T. and may recur next season.

Succession star Sarah Snook will lead the cast of All Her Fault, based on the novel of the same name by Andrea Mara, which has been greenlit at Peacock. The official logline for the series states, "Marissa Irvine (Snook) arrives at 14 Arthur Avenue, expecting to pick up her young son Milo from his first playdate with a boy at his new school. But the woman who answers the door isn’t a mother she recognizes. She isn’t the nanny. She doesn’t have Milo. And so begins every parent’s worst nightmare."

Max series Tokyo Vice has ended after two seasons. Ansel Elgort played a western journalist who works for a newspaper in Tokyo and winds up taking on one of the city’s most powerful crime bosses. Tokyo Vice creators J.T. Rogers and EP/director Alan Poul said, "We know there is more story to tell. Of course we’ll see what the future holds, but we are indeed grateful to have been able to share this story on Max until now.”

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

On Crime Time FM, Ben Pastor chatted with Paul Burke about her new literary historical crime novel, The Venus of Salò; Martin Bora; totalitarianism; Rome; writing in English; growing up in a divided world; and Shaun the Sheep.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with author Jo Callaghan, discussing her crime thrillers featuring an artificial intelligence policing hologram, and debating the transformative impact of new technologies and the possibility of AI Armageddon.