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
Sony’s 3000 Pictures adaptation of Don Winslow's best-selling crime novel, City On Fire, has hired on Captain Fantastic director Matt Ross to helm the feature, which stars Austin Butler. Winslow's trilogy focuses on two criminal empires — one Irish, the other Italian — that control all of New England, until a modern-day Helen of Troy tears them apart and starts a brutal war. The main character, Danny Ryan (Butler), is forced to grow from a street soldier into a ruthlessly efficient leader to protect his friends, his family, and the home he loves. Fighting the Mafia, the local cops, the feds – everyone – Danny is out to build a dynasty or will die trying. It's a modern retelling of the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid and Greek tragic dramas set in the world of contemporary crime.
Highland Film Group has locked in key international deals in all media for the crime thriller, The Deputy, based on Victor Gischler’s novel of the same name, with Narcos co-creator Carlo Bernard adapting the screenplay. Helmed by Matt Sukkar, in his feature directorial debut, the story follows part-time Deputy Toby Sawyer (Duke Nicholson) who is tasked by his boss (William H. Macy) with guarding a corpse until the coroner arrives. When the body goes missing, he unwittingly uncovers decades of wrongdoing and risks his life to unravel the town’s deep web of corruption. Rounding out the cast are Tiffany Haddish, Stephen Dorff, Julia Fox, Billie Lourd, Devon Ross, and Colleen Camp.
The Green Knight's David Lowery has set his next feature with Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, an anarchic whodunnit and psychological thriller titled Death in Her Hands. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2020 novel, the story centers on recent widow Vesta Gul (Swinton), who comes across a chilling handwritten note in the woods near her home: "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body." Except there is no body. No blood. Unmoored by the death of her husband and armed only with a camera, her dog Charlie, and her vivid imagination, Vesta becomes obsessed with uncovering Magda’s identity and fate. As her inner world begins to eclipse reality, the mystery of Magda threatens Vesta’s grip on her own life – until, in a spellbinding operatic climax, we realize that Magda’s death may finally allow Vesta to live.
Oscar-nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction), Eva Green (Casino Royale), and Maria Pedraza (Money Heist) are set to star in the thriller, Just Play Dead, to be directed by Gary Fleder (Homefront), based on a script by Dan Gordon (Rambo: Last Blood). The synopsis reads: "When wealthy criminal mastermind Jack Wolfe (Jackson) is cornered by the Feds, he plans to fake his own death and claim the $30 million life insurance payout with his 'grieving' wife Nora (Green), while framing her surfer lover Chad (María Pedraza) for his murder. But Nora is cooking up a scheme of her own: kill Jack for real, frame Chad and keep the fortune for herself. As lies unravel, Nora and Jack scramble to outsmart one another, leaving one burning question: who will come out on top in this twisted game of life and death?"
Martin Freeman (Sherlock; The Hobbit) and Olga Kurylenko (Quantum Of Solace) are set to star in Let God Sort It Out, marking the first production from newly launched Cobalt Sky Motion Picture Group, joined by Raised By Wolves (Dead Man’s Wire). The project follows Kyle Roberts (Freeman), a once-revered rock 'n' roll star battling burnout and inner demons. Seeking solace in a remote sanctuary, his pursuit of peace is shattered when a gang of petty criminals infiltrates his retreat, holding him hostage in an escalating standoff. As tensions rise, Kyle must reckon with whether he has the courage to fight back or if he’ll succumb to the shadows of his fractured psyche.
Mads Mikkelsen will star in Sirius, the feature directorial debut of Oscar-winning editor, Lee Smith. Written by Tony Mosher (Mechanic: Resurrection), Sirius is described as a gripping Arctic action-thriller inspired by the real-life Sirius Patrol, the Danish special forces unit charged with defending Greenland’s 8,700-mile frozen coastline. Smith is a renowned film editor whose work includes Interstellar, The Dark Knight, 1917, and The Truman Show. He won his Oscar for editing Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.
Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) and Oscar nominated Austin Butler (Elvis) are set to lead the new crime drama, Enemies, which Henry Dunham (The Standoff at Sparrow Creek) is both writing and directing. In Enemies, a relentless detective and an infamous contract killer collide in a deadly game of cat and mouse, leading both to discover unexpected similarities between them.
Oscar nominee Amanda Seyfried (Mank) and Scoot McNairy (A Complete Unknown) are set to star in The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd, a new prison break thriller written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson. Currently in production in Georgia, the film follows a teacher in an abusive marriage who takes a job at a maximum security prison, where she falls for a charismatic inmate. The disastrous consequences call into question not only the nature of punishment and retribution, but the very limits of our humanity.
Denzel Washington, Robert Pattinson, and Daisy Edgar-Jones are set to star in Here Comes the Flood, a new Netflix heist film from Fernando Meirelles, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind the streamer’s lauded drama, The Two Popes. Written by Simon Kinberg (Mr. & Mrs. Smith), the film is described as an unconventional heist flick about a bank guard, a teller, and a master thief in a deadly game of cons and double crosses.
Brandon Sklenar (Drop) is boarding F.A.S.T., a long-gestating action thriller that TV producer Taylor Sheridan has scripted for Warner Bros. In the film, a former special forces commando is tapped by the DEA to lead a black op strike team against CIA-protected drug dealers. The project reunites Sklenar and Sheridan following their work on 1923, a Western drama for Paramount+ that’s part of the latter’s Yellowstone universe. Also a veteran of that series is cinematographer Ben Richardson, who will make his feature directorial debut on F.A.S.T., to be released in theaters on April 23, 2027.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Netflix has ordered a series adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s novel, All the Sinners Bleed, from The Obama’s Higher Ground and Amblin Television. The story follows the first Black Sheriff in a small Bible Belt County, haunted by his past in the FBI and his devout mother’s untimely death, as he must lead the hunt for a serial killer who has quietly been preying on Black communities in Southern Virginia for years in the name of God. Joe Robert Cole (Black Panther) will adapt and serve as showrunner for the nine-part series.
Former Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey is returning to broadcast TV as the lead in Memory of a Killer, Fox’s straight-to-series thriller about a hitman who develops early onset Alzheimer’s. Hailing from writers Ed Whitmore and Tracey Malone, the series is inspired by the 2003 Belgian film De Zaak Alzheimer (La Memoire Du Tueur), which was remade as the 2022 American film, Memory, directed by Martin Campbell. The new thriller tells a redemption story about Angelo Ledda (Dempsey), whose double life, as a hitman and an upstate photocopier salesman with a family, is threatened in the wake of an Alzheimer's diagnosis, the same disease that killed his older brother. While facing the loss of memories, Angelo must search deep into his past hits to save his family from his enemies.
Charlotte Kirk (Duchess) has signed on to star in Write To Kill from author and producer David P. Perlmutter. The series follows an aspiring author, cursed with writer’s block and ridden with debt, who is offered a huge amount of money to commit a heinous crime. The official synopsis reads: "Caught up in the machinations of the underworld and at the mercy of a London gangland boss, Mad Dog, will this budding writer accept the money, commit the crime, and leave his innocence behind him?" Also attached to star are Billy Hayes (Midnight Express), Elena Sanchez (Hunger Games), Sean Cronin (Mission Impossible), Rich Graff (Making Of The Mob), Amber Doig-Thorne (Winnie The Pooh – Blood and Honey), Brooke Lewis Bellas (Sinatra Club), Vanessa Eichholz (Hellboy), David Kallaway (Blacklist), and Jack Hudson (Accomplice).
It seems that S.W.A.T. isn't quite dead, after all. On the heels of CBS recently canceling the series, it was announced that Sony Pictures Television is spinning off the cop drama for a new show dubbed S.W.A.T. Exiles. Shemar Moore will reprise his character as Daniel "Hondo" Harrelson, while the 200-person production crew that helped to make S.W.A.T. a success for CBS will get to keep their jobs when production resumes this summer in Los Angeles. The plan for the studio is to produce and distribute the 10-episode series globally by "finding the right homes and partners for these new stories to reach the passionate S.W.A.T. fanbase and attract new viewers." The spinoff would follow Hondo after he's pulled out of retirement when a high-profile mission goes sideways in order to lead a last-chance experimental SWAT (political tactical) unit made up of untested, unpredictable young recruits.
The CW has picked up two seasons of the drama series, Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent. Based on the classic format created by Dick Wolf and developed by Rene Balcer for Universal Television, season 1 launched in 2024 on Canada’s CityTV. Starring Aden Young (Rectify) and Kathleen Munroe (City on Fire), Season 1 follows the Specialized Criminal Investigations Unit’s duo, Detective Sergeants Henry Graff (Young) and Frankie Bateman (Munroe), as they investigate high-profile homicides in Canada’s largest metropolis.
Patience will return to the UK's Channel 4 for a second series after season one became the network's biggest drama of 2025. Patience (Ella Maisy Purvis) will continue her work in the police criminal records department of City of York Police after establishing herself as an invaluable member of the team, bringing her unique insight into a series of perplexing cases. However, when a new boss, Detective Frankie Monroe (Jessica Hynes) brings a very different management style, it proves tricky for them both to navigate. Love is also in the air in this series as Patience begins a relationship with work colleague, Elliot (Tom Lewis), and the police department gets a makeover with the arrival of a new PR consultant, all while tackling intriguing crimes in extraordinary settings.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
In the latest episode of Murder Junction, Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee chatted with crime writer Tariq Ashkanani about his dark new thriller, The Midnight King, and a chilling true life crime: The Hinterkaifeck Murders.
Meet the Thriller Author interviewed Joshua Moehling, bestselling author of the Ben Packard thriller series, about the latest installment, A Long Time Gone.
A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast episode is up, featuring the first chapter of Pierce the Darkness by Nannette Potter, read by actors Ariel Linn and Sean Hopper.
On the Pick Your Poison podcast, Dr. Jen Prosser, investigated the poison that's the most potent known to man, yet is ubiquitous in nature. Plus, how you can be poisoned by a prison potato?
