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

Mishel Prada (The Continental) is joining Kiernan Shipka, Kiefer Sutherland, and Krysten Ritter in the action-thriller, Stone Cold Fox, currently in production in Los Angeles. 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. Prada stars as Frankie, the ex-combat medic who joins forces with Shipka’s character to rescue her kidnapped sister from the abusive commune she once belonged to. Written by Sophie Tabet and Julia Roth, the project will mark Tabet’s directorial debut.

After a competitive auction, Amazon MGM Studios has landed the project Murder 101, with Jon Watts attached to direct. Watts will also produce alongside Dianne McGunigle and KT Studios’ Stephanie Lydecker. The film is based on the true story that unfolds in the true crime podcast of the same name from KT Studios and iHearts #1. Set in a small Tennessee town, the podcast told a story about how a group of high school students and their teacher, Alex Campbell, profiled a local serial killer which led to his capture.

IFC Films has snapped up North American rights to Skincare, a crime thriller starring Elizabeth Banks (A Mistake). Also starring Lewis Pullman (Top Gun: Maverick), Luis Gerardo Méndez (Charlie’s Angels), Nathan Fillion (The Rookie), and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez (Pose), the film is set to hit theaters on August 16. A fictional story inspired by true events, Skincare follows famed aesthetician Hope Goldman (Banks), who is about to take her career to the next level by launching her very own skincare line, though complications arise when rival facialist Angel Vergara (Méndez) opens a new skincare boutique directly across from her studio. She begins to suspect that someone is trying to sabotage her reputation and business, and together with her friend Jordan (Pullman), she embarks on a mission to unravel the mystery of who is trying to destroy her life.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

George Clooney’s remake of the French political drama series, The Bureau, has officially found its lead. Michael Fassbender is now confirmed to star in the series, which is now known as The Agency, having previously been titled The Department. Given a straight-to-series order at Showtime in 2023, the drama will premiere on Paramount+ with Showtime later this year and follows Martian (Fassbender), a covert CIA agent ordered to abandon his undercover life and return to London Station. When the love he left behind reappears, romance reignites. His career, his real identity and his mission are pitted against his heart; hurling both him and his love into a deadly game of international intrigue and espionage.

CBS is developing a new take on the detective series, Einstein, from Monk creators Andy Breckman and Randy Zisk. Brilliant but directionless, the great grandson of Albert Einstein spends his days as a comfortably tenured professor until his bad boy antics land him in trouble with the law and he is pressed into service helping a local police detective solve her most puzzling cases. This is the third attempt at developing the project for American television, including a version of the show that ran for three seasons in Germany, a gender-swapped version, and another that was in development at NBC. The German series, written by Martin Ritzenhoff and Matthias Dinter, was based on the 2015 movie they penned, and starred Tom Beck as Professor Dr. Felix "Einstein" Winterberg and Annika Ernst as police commissioner Elena Lange.

Fox is developing a supernatural crime procedural based on the Image Comics property, Proof. The book, which was created by Alex Grecian and Riley Rossmo, pairs two unlikely heroes together – disgruntled FBI Agent-in-Training Ginger Rodriguez and John "Proof" Prufrock, a jazz-loving Bigfoot – to protect the world from Cryptids: obscure creatures whose existence has yet to be proven. While these two start out as a surprising duo, they strike up an unlikely friendship, partnership, and even potential romance as they help save the world side by side.

PODCASTS/RADIO

On Crime Time FM, Erin Kelly (The House of Mirrors), Chris Whitaker (All the Colours of the Dark), and Vanessa Walters (The Lagos Wife) joined moderator Victoria Selman at the Capital Crime 2024 conference to discuss their panel, titled "The Ties That Bind," and their favorite reads, characters, and settings.

Meet the Thriller Writer welcomed Ace Atkins, a New York Times best-selling author and former crime beat reporter, to discuss his journey from journalism to fiction writing, emphasizing the importance of real-world experience and good writing skills. He also talked about his extensive career, including his role in continuing Robert B. Parker’s iconic Spencer series, and his own Quinn Coulson series.

On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Adam Plantinga, police sergeant and best-selling author of The Ascent, chatted with host Frank Zafiro.

This week's episode of the Crime Cafe podcast featured an interview with Clay Stafford, bestselling and award-winning author, poet, screenwriter, and playwright. He's also founder and CEO of Killer Nashville.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the prologue and first chapter of Lorie Lewis Ham's latest novel, One of You, read by actor Cady Mejias.

The Cops and Writers podcast looked into the mysterious world of death investigations with expert death investigator and host of the popular Death Calls podcast, Emily Speed.

The latest Pick Your Poison podcast investigated what pacifiers have to do with drugs, what toxin causes your brain to swell and how drinking too much water increases the risk, and which drug of abuse is currently under review by the FDA as medicine.