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

Julia Roberts is teaming up with director James Gray to tackle an adaptation of bestselling author Peter Swanson’s forthcoming novel, Kill Your Darlings. The story is a murder mystery told in reverse and centers on Tom and Wendy Graves, a couple married for over 25 years who appear to have a picture-perfect life, but beneath the surface, they harbor a shocking secret. The story moves backward through time to witness key moments from the couple’s lives—their fiftieth birthday party, buying their home, Jason’s birth, the mysterious death of a work colleague—all painting a portrait of a marriage defined by a single terrible act they plotted together many years ago.

Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights to Thomas Ray‘s novella, Silencer, enlisting Ben Jacoby (The First Omen) to adapt it for the big screen. The story follows a CIA field agent who is sent to bring in the ultimate CIA target who’s been out in the cold for decades. An operative who dates back to the dark times of MK Ultra, the target is a silencer — someone who can read minds, and wipe them from a distance, making him impossible to find or catch. Jacoby is also co-writer on The Whisper Man,the adaptation of the novel by Alex North, which has been greenlighted at Netflix with Robert De Niro on board to star.

Miles Teller (Whiplash) is set to star with Oscar winner Casey Affleck (Manchester By The Sea) in the manhunt thriller, Wild Game, from Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jason Hall (American Sniper) who will direct. The film is adapted by Hall from the novel of the same name by Frank Bergon, based on true events. The synopsis reads: "When Fish and Game officer Jack Irigaray (Casey Affleck) joins a routine poacher arrest in the Black Rock Desert, a deadly encounter with renegade Claude Dallas (Miles Teller) shatters his reality and propels him into a relentless quest for vengeance — one that blurs the line between justice and obsession."

Yorgos Lanthimos is reportedly set to write and direct Fatale, an adaptation of Jean-Patrick Manchette’s assassin thriller novel. The story centers on female assassin Aimé. Whether you call her a cold-hearted grifter or the soul of modern capitalism, there’s no question that Aimée is a killer and a professional one. Now she’s set her eyes on a backwater burg, where she plans to pose as an innocent newcomer to town while sniffing out old grudges and engineering new opportunities. But then something snaps: the master manipulator falls prey to a pure and wayward passion.

A first look was revealed for Rebecca Zlotowski’s French-language murder mystery movie, Vie Privée, starring Jodie Foster alongside a host of top French talent including Daniel Auteuil and Virginie Efira. Foster stars in the film as renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner who mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered. Foster, who speaks fluent French, has appeared in a handful of French-language films, but Vie Privée marks her first French-language role in two decades after Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s wartime romance A Very Long Engagement in 2005.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Emmy nominee Blair Singer (Bull) has landed a script commitment at Fox for Cold Blooded Liar, a one-hour procedural mystery thriller series based on the international bestseller of the same name by Karen Rose. The drama is set in postcard-perfect San Diego, where strong-willed homicide detective Kit McKittrick uses her ferocious determination and heightened empathy from her foster kid background to solve the most chilling murder cases the city has ever seen. As she confronts some of the darkest corners of humanity, she meets a handsome, insightful psychologist named Sam Reeves, and together, their partnership develops into a transformative bond.

Apple TV+ has landed the rights to High Wire, the thriller novel from international bestselling Australian author Candice Fox, for development as a TV series. Ridley Scott’s Scott Free is set to produce under their first-look deal with Apple TV+. High Wire takes readers on a high-octane journey through the Australian outback and centers on Harvey Buck, a former soldier racing against time to reach his dying girlfriend. Along the way, he encounters Clare Holland, a traveler stranded after her car breaks down. Offering her a ride, Harvey unwittingly plunges them both into a nightmare: they are ambushed by a vengeful crew and forced into bomb vests, compelled to commit a series of increasingly dangerous missions under threat of detonation.

Oscar, BAFTA, and Tony Award-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones has landed her next high-profile TV project, an adaptation of Aidan Truhen's thriller, The Price You Pay. Zeta-Jones is starring in and producing Kill Jackie [working title], in which the novel’s lead Jack has switched from man to woman for the TV version. Zeta-Jones will play Jackie Price, who has lived a wealthy, luxurious existence for the last 20 years—travelling the world, selling fine art using sophisticated tax loopholes and, above all, trying to stay anonymous after escaping a dangerous past as an international cocaine dealer. But just as life starts to feel a little boring, it takes a sudden lethal turn when she discovers that The Seven Demons, a squad of the world’s most terrifying hitmen, have been hired to kill her.

Sean Bean has been tapped to star opposite Jack Patten in MGM+'s upcoming series, Robin Hood. The series is set following the Norman invasion of England and follows Rob (Patten), a Saxon forester’s son, and Marian, the daughter of a Norman lord, who fall in love and work together to fight for justice and freedom. As Rob rises as the leader of a band of rebel outlaws, Marian infiltrates the power at court, as both work together to thwart royal corruption and bring peace to the land. Bean will play the Sheriff of Nottingham who is envisioned as a statesman, a strategist, and a builder of Nottingham itself, who navigates the dangerous tides of power, facing not only an outlaw in the woods but also the ambitions of Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Norman Barons that surround him.

Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) has officially joined the series regular cast of the Showtime Original Series Dexter: Resurrection, from executive producer and showrunner Clyde Phillips. Production began in New York last month and will premiere this summer. No official synopsis for the Michael C. Hall-led series has been revealed, but it’s the continuation of Dexter: New Blood set in the present day. Dinklage will portray Leon Prater, a billionaire venture capitalist. To the world, Leon is a generous philanthropist, but behind his polished exterior lies dark intrigue. 

BritBox International is serving up a crime procedural series using classic Italian cuisine as the basis for each episode’s murder mystery. A Taste for Murder will star Downton Abbey actor Phyllis Logan alongside Warren Brown (The Responder) and Cristiana Dell’Anna (Gomorrah). Each episode of the series will feature a murder mystery connected in some way to Italian cuisine. Brown is DCI Joe Mottram, a star detective with the Metropolitan police who, after a personal tragedy, retreats to Capri in Italy with his daughter to stay with his Italian in-laws for the summer. Logan is Elena Da Vinale, the witty matriarch of the family, front-of-house manager of the family restaurant, and mother to DCI Joe’s late wife. Gomorrah star Dell’Anna plays Inspector Lara Sarrancino, an ambitious and no-nonsense detective with the State Police in Naples.

PODCASTS/RADIO

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly spoke with writer Jo Nesbo about his new thriller, Blood Ties, which features two brothers with a dark history—standing in contrast to the setting, a pretty little spa town.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Gregg Hurwitz to the podcast to discuss his writing and his 24 thrillers, including the Orphan X series.

On Crime Time FM, Graeme Macrae Burnet chatted with Paul Burke about the concluding volume of the Gorsky trilogy, A Case of Matricide; Simenon; Zola; small town France; and Kilmarnock.

Write Place, Wrong Crime's Frank Zafiro spoke with DM Barr (Dawn Barclay), who shared her wide range of work in crime fiction and non-fiction alike.

Murder Junction welcomed Simon Mayo, radio broadcasting legend, to discuss his latest thriller, Black Tag, the legend of convict King Dick, and his fondest memories from his famous radio "Confessions" segment.

On Crime Cafe, host Debbi Mack chatted with educator and crime writer Michael Kaufman about his Jen Lu series, which features a brain implant character named Chandler.

On Pick Your Poison, Dr. Jen Prosse investigated a toxin in the local diet that affected Arctic explorers in the 1800s but not native people; which body part reflects brain swelling; and what the ancient Egyptians used to treat night blindness.