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
William H. Macy (Fargo) has signed to star in the crime comedy, Too Many Crooks, based on a Donald Westlake's short story which won an Edgar Award in 1990. Macy’s character, John Dornhoefer, is a recently released career criminal on parole, set on pulling off another bank robbery. With his trusted, but disheveled sidekick, Andy Karp, the plans start to take shape. The meticulously plotted operation takes an unexpected turn when they discover the bank is already being robbed. The quick-minded Dornhoefer seizes an opportunity to protect the hostages, outsmart the gunmen, and sweet talk FBI Agent Carol Reed who is the lead hostage negotiator. But bad habits die hard and while he may save the day, it’s still the money that could make it all worthwhile.
Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (The Guard) is taking on Fear Is The Rider, an adaptation of the novel, The Hunted, by Gabriel Bergmoser. The project has signed Ben Mendelsohn (Star Wars: Rogue One), Abbey Lee (Horizons: An American Saga), Toby Wallace (The Bikeriders), and Eliza Scanlen (Babyteeth) in lead roles. In a nod to the gore-drenched "Ozploitation" slashers of the 1970s, the film follows a lone woman, searching for her missing mother, who is pursued into the Australian Outback by a terrifying family of serial killers, with only an ex-con and a young girl willing to help her. This is the first installment in a trilogy of thrillers from the production team, to be followed by Fear is the Rider: Australia Day, based on a novel by Kenneth Cook.
Vertical has acquired North American rights to the neo-noir, The Long Game, based on the acclaimed short story by New York Times bestselling author Janet Fitch. Marking the directorial debut of Jace Anderson, who co-wrote the script, The Long Game sees Oscar nominee Kathleen Turner return to the genre in which she burst upon the scene (with Body Heat), alongside Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), and newcomer Sekai Abenì. Abenì plays ambitious young actress Holly Sloan, who agrees to help her boyfriend Richard Metzger (Haley) scam Hollywood legend Mariah McKay (Turner), but the two women strike up an unlikely friendship instead. It's unclear where Holly’s loyalties lie, or who’s scamming whom, and the game soon turns deadly. Ever Carradine (The Handmaid's Tale) and Chris Mulkey (Boardwalk Empire) round out the cast.
Theo James (The Gentleman) is set to star in The Hole, directed by Kim Jee-woon (I Saw The Devil) and written by Christopher Chen, based on the 2017 Shirley Jackson award-winning novel of the same name by Hye-young Pyun. The Hole follows Owen (James), a successful professor living abroad in South Korea, who is bedridden after a devastating car accident that killed his wife, Sandy. He is left under the care of Yuna, his Korean mother-in-law, but when she starts to unravel the devastating truth behind Owen and Sandy’s marriage, and Owen himself, his road to recovery is threatened.
Jessica Chastain, Brendan Fraser, and Bryan Cranston have joined Al Pacino in the cast of the mystery thriller, Assassination. The film will be directed by Barry Levinson from a script by David Mamet, Levinson, and Sam Bromell. The project offers up a new take on the JFK conspiracy, centering around Dorothy Kilgallen (Chastain), one of the most famous voices in media at the time. When she suspects that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, she uses her fame and influence to find President John F. Kennedy’s real killer. Part murder mystery, part film noir, Kilgallen’s journey will put her up against the CIA, mafia bosses, and the FBI, all who would love nothing more than to make her and this story disappear. "With back-channel sources to the Warren Commission, [Kilgallen] started putting pieces together that no one else did," Levinson said. "She died under very suspicious circumstances, but it was never investigated."
Golden Globe winner Idris Elba (Luther) is set to star in the action-thriller, Hammer Down. Elba plays Mac, the best at what he does, driving a big rig truck across the country with a "no questions asked" policy about the goods he transports. When he takes his tenacious teenage daughter along for a job, they are tracked and attacked by a relentless group of criminals that will stop at nothing to secure the consignment he has been entrusted to deliver. Pursued by merciless killers and with the police hot on their trail, Mac and his daughter must work together to prevent the cargo falling into dangerous hands so they can survive to live another day.
Oscar nominee Dev Patel (The Green Knight) will star in The Journeyman, a new crime thriller from director Tarsem Singh (The Fall) and Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios. Scripted by the husband-and-wife duo of Bryan and Alexis Roberts, The Journeyman is the story of a struggling pro tennis player who is lured into an illegal match-fixing ring to support his family and finds himself trapped in a ruthless world of corruption and violence he may never escape.
Oscar nominees Lily Gladstone (Killers Of The Flower Moon) and Bryan Cranston (Trumbo) have been set as the leads in the action-thriller, Lone Wolf. Mark Pellington (Arlington Road) will direct from an original screenplay by Tom Chilcoat. The conspiracy thriller will follow a troubled vet (Gladstone) struggling with addiction who is recruited by a contractor (Cranston) for a covert government plot to assassinate a high-level politician. After learning she’s set to take the fall, she must utilize all of her skills to outwit the shadow agents to protect the future of her son.
Academy Award winner Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once) has closed a deal to star in Fairytale in New York, a Lionsgate action thriller from director Jalmari Helander (Sisu). The story takes place on Christmas Eve in New York City, as an unassuming cab driver takes one last ride before going to celebrate the holiday with his estranged son. After a run-in with a gang of criminals, he embarks on a relentless pursuit to retrieve his kid’s priceless Christmas gift.
Emmy winner Guy Pearce (The Brutalist), Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), and The Gentlemen star Daniel Ings will lead crime-thriller Mr. Sunny Sky. The film will follow Leonard Moore, a once chart-topping pop star now lounge singer at a mid-budget Canary Island hotel. One night he meets Shirley, another lost soul with whom he shares an instant connection. But Shirley’s husband is a dangerous man and soon the new couple’s burgeoning romance is thrust into a spiral of paranoia, suspense, and violence. Matt Chambers is directing based on his own screenplay and filming is due to start next year on location in Gran Canaria. This will be Chambers’s second feature after the well-received The Bike Thief which was nominated for a British Independent Film Award.
West Duchovny (Painkiller) and Scott Eastwood (Fast X) are in production in Austin, TX on Pearl, an indie drama written and directed by Marcos Efron (And Soon the Darkness), which will also star the Babylon duo of Lukas Haas and Ethan Suplee, along with Vincent Laresca (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood). Inspired by pictures like Five Easy Pieces, The Sugarland Express, and Hell or High Water, the film follows a young musician, Pearl (Duchovny), who is stuck in an abusive relationship until she meets Eli (Eastwood), a bank robber on the run, who links up with her as he looks to evade law enforcement in rural Texas.
Jefferson White (Yellowstone), Gloria Reuben (E.R.), and Tate Donovan (Argo) have signed on to star alongside Alexandra Doke (City on Fire) and David Nordstrand in Bonding, an independent thriller from Ukrainian-born director Victoria Trofimenko, which is shooting at the historic Stoner Ranch near Telluride, Colorado. Bonding is the story of three disconnected siblings who must confront their personal differences to cover up the murder of a tech millionaire at his remote Colorado ranch. The problem is not just the dead body; it’s that these siblings do not get along. Having grown up in a fractured home, they have a few things in common — checkered pasts and resentment for each other. Faced with an impossible problem of covering up an accidental murder, the family is forced to confront their strong differences and dark secrets.
Director Elegance Bratton (The Inspection) is getting back behind the camera for By Any Means, a true-life crime thriller starring Oscar nominees Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter) and Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction). Based on the Black List script CI34 from Sascha Penn and Theodore Witcher, By Any Means is based on the incredible true story of the notorious mafia hitman who was hired by Hoover’s FBI off-the-books and partnered with a young Black special agent to hunt down those responsible for the murders of civil rights leaders in 1966 Mississippi.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Tiya Sircar (The Good Place), Anna Diop (Nanny), Graham Phillips (Riverdale), and Georgia King (Vice Principals) have joined the cast of Prime Video’s Scarpetta in recurring roles. They join the previously announced Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis, who will both executive produce; Bobby Cannavale, Simon Baker, Rosy McEwen, Jake Cannavale, Ariana DeBose, Sosie Bacon, Amanda Righetti, Janet Montgomery, Stephanie Faracy, and Mike Vogel. Based on Patricia Cornwell’s best-selling book series, Scarpetta follows Kay Scarpetta (Kidman), Chief Medical Examiner, as she returns to Virginia and resumes her former position with complex relationships, both personal and professional – including her sister Dorothy (Curtis), with plenty of grudges and secrets to uncover.
Legendary Television has acquired the rights to Murdle, a collection of murder mystery puzzles by G. T. Karber, to develop a scripted series based on the best-selling book. Pacesetter Productions brought the pitch to Legendary, with plans to build out a Murdle universe that will also include films and unscripted series, after acquiring the book in a competitive situation. Paddington writer Jon Croker will pen the television adaptation, which will be the project to launch this expanded universe, but thus far, the logline for the series is still being kept under wraps. Published by St. Martin’s Griffin in the US and Souvenir Press/Profile Books in the UK, Murdle features 100 "simple to impossible" mysteries for readers to solve.
Matt Charman, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, has a new television thriller in the works after British pay broadcaster Sky ordered Prisoner, with Charman set to write and serve as showrunner. The series will be produced by Charman’s own production company Binocular Productions, which was the company behind the Netflix spy series Treason. The project is a relationship drama that dives into what a serial killer can teach an ordinary person about what it takes to survive in his world. Casting is underway, with filming expected to start next year.
Netflix has unveiled a trailer and images promoting its spy thriller series, Black Doves, starring Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw, and revealed a premiere date of December 5. Black Doves, which also stars Sarah Lancashire, is set against the backdrop of London at Christmas. It follows Helen Webb (Knightley), a quick-witted, down-to-earth, dedicated wife and mother — and professional spy. For 10 years, she’s been passing on her politician husband’s secrets to the shadowy organization she works for: the Black Doves. When her secret lover Jason (Andrew Koji) is assassinated, her spymaster, the enigmatic Reed (Lancashire), calls in Helen’s old friend Sam (Whishaw) to keep her safe.
Apple TV+'s legal thriller Presumed Innocent was based on Scott Turow’s bestselling novel of the same name. Season 2 of the show, executive produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams, and Season 1 star Jake Gyllenhaal and co-exec produced by Turow, is taking a completely different path with a female lead, Leila Reynolds, succeeding Gyllenhaal’s Rusty Sabich. According to sources, Apple TV+ and producing studio Warner Bros. TV have acquired the rights to Dissection of a Murder, the upcoming debut legal thriller by Jo Murray. The book, set for a spring 2026 publication by Pan Macmillan, follows Leila Reynolds who has just been handed her first murder case. She’s way out of her depth but the defendant only wants her – and to make matters worse, her husband is the prosecutor. Soon Leila is fighting to keep her own secrets buried, too.
PODCASTS/RADIO
This week’s guest on the Crime Cafe podcast was historical crime writer Stephen Eoannou.
Crime Time FM featured a live event at Waterstones Colchester with dynamic duo Nicci French (aka husband & wife writing team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French) and a fascinating discussion ranging from inspiration to AI.
On the Pick Your Poison podcast, Dr. Jen Prosser profiled a substance that has been used at parties since 1799 and is still popular on sites like TikTok and why it’s used as much as 600 times per day (and can be found in the grocery store).
