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

Lyrical Media and Ryder Picture Company will adapt Sian Gilbert’s debut thriller, She Started It, for the screen. Jessica Sharzer, the screenwriter behind A Simple Favor, is set to direct from the script she co-wrote with Sarah Masson. The story follows Annabel, Esther, Tanya, and Chloe, once inseparable childhood friends who have since drifted apart. Their adult lives haven’t unfolded quite as they’d imagined, but a shared past and buried secrets have kept them loosely connected. When they receive an invitation from former classmate, Poppy Greer, to an extravagant bachelorette weekend on a private island, curiosity and the promise of luxury pulls them back together. But the trip is not what it seems. With no cell service, no other guests, and tensions rising, the women soon realize they’ve underestimated Poppy — and each other.

Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick) is set to direct and produce an adaptation of Miami Vice for Universal Pictures, from a script by Dan Gilroy. Miami Vice, the groundbreaking original NBC series that starred Don Johnson (Sonny Crockett) and Philip Michael Thomas (Rico Tubbs), signed off in 1989 after five sunglasses-filled seasons, followed by the 2006 Michael Mann-directed film adaptation starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. No cast has been set for this latest iteration.

Chris Hemsworth is set to star in Subversion, a submarine action flick coming together at Amazon MGM Studios, with Patrick Vollrath (7500) directing from a script by Andrew Ferguson. The film follows a once-promising Naval commander (Hemsworth) who is blackmailed by a cartel-like operation into piloting a dangerous submarine carrying illegal cargo across international waters, thrusting him into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, outmaneuvering blockades, and navigating perilous threats both in and outside of the submarine.

Jessica Alba (Trigger Warning) has signed on to lead the action thriller, The Mark, a spy flick set to begin production in Australia in July. In the film from director Justin Chadwick (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom), Alba plays Eden, an enigmatic spy on a covert and dangerous mission. When Eden pulls single father Ben Dawson into her world of high-stakes espionage, his life is turned upside down. Mistaken for the world’s deadliest assassin, Ben becomes the perfect decoy for Eden. She uses the mix-up to expose a powerful network of corrupt politicians, placing Ben in the crosshairs of the CIA, Interpol, and ruthless crime syndicates. With enemies closing in from all sides, Eden must keep Ben alive long enough to complete her mission — while Ben must summon his inner action hero to stay alive and return to the person who matters most: his daughter. Ronnie Christensen (Passengers; Incarnate) penned the script.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Blink49 Studios has secured rights to adapt the debut novel of Eliza Reid, Iceland's former First Lady, as a six-part TV series. Billed as a "twist-filled mystery thriller," Death on the Island is set in the high-stakes world of diplomacy. Per the synopsis, "When the Canadian ambassador’s deputy collapses at a remote Icelandic soirée, suspicions swirl, and his wife, Jane Shearer, decides to take matters into her own hands. Partnering with an ambitious young Icelandic detective, Jane uncovers a web of secrets, corruption, and betrayal stretching from Reykjavik’s elite to the heart of her own marriage. As the danger mounts and the truth threatens powerful interests, Jane must choose: protect the illusion or risk everything to unmask a killer."

Scott Rosenbaum, showrunner of USA Network’s Queen of the South, is adapting Maureen Callahan’s book, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century, as a television series. The book investigates one of America’s most elusive and terrifying criminals, Israel Keyes, who buried "kill kits" in remote locations across the country. Over the course of fourteen years, he would fly to a city, rent a car, and drive thousands of miles in order to use his kits. He would break into a stranger’s house, abduct his victims in broad daylight, and kill and dispose of them in mere hours. And then he would return home to Alaska, resuming life as a quiet, reliable construction worker devoted to his only daughter.

Universal is adapting Amy Tintera's bestseller thriller novel, Listen for the Lie, into a drama series of the same name. The novel follows Lucy on her quest to solve best friend Savvy’s murder, in which she is the prime suspect. At the start of the novel, it’s been five years since Lucy was found wandering the streets covered in her best friend Savvy's blood shortly after she was murdered. After moving to L.A. to start a new life, Lucy is forced to revisit her small Texas hometown — and the circumstances of Savvy's death — when the host of the hit true crime podcast, Listen for the Lie, makes the case the focus of his next investigation.

The Sun is reporting that Peaky Blinders is returning to BBC One but with two major changes from last series. The move follows on the heels of the upcoming Peaky Blinders movie set to air on Netflix later this year. Series six saw the characters in the 1930s, while the upcoming film, titled The Immortal Man, is set during the Second World War. The new series is likely to move the Birmingham gangsters into the Fifties, an era known for violent mobs of Teddy Boys and the rise of notorious East London villains, the Kray twins. Although casting details are unknown at this time, it's possible that Oscar Winner Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), who appears in the new film, could return as crime boss Thomas Shelby but as a "father figure" to younger gang members. The BBC declined to respond to the story.
 

In a return to CBS, former CSI: Vegas star Matt Lauria has been tapped as the male lead opposite Morena Baccarin on the network’s upcoming drama series, Sheriff Country, a spinoff from hit Fire Country. The spinoff, which will premiere in the fall, stars Baccarin as straight-shooting sheriff Mickey Fox, the stepsister of Cal Fire’s division chief Sharon Leone (Fire Country's Diane Farr), who investigates criminal activity as she patrols the streets of small-town Edgewater while contending with her ex-con father (W. Earl Brown) and a mysterious incident involving her wayward daughter. Lauria will play Boone, Sheriff Mickey Fox’s smart, tough and capable deputy and longtime partner. Originally from Oakland, he’s used to a different kind of policing. Their contrasting law enforcement styles makes their partnership both complex and occasionally tense.

I noted last week that CBS had picked up an order for the crime drama, Einstein, starring Matthew Gubler (Criminal Minds) as a bad-boy professor—who also happens to the great-grandson of Albert Einstein—who is roped into assisting law enforcement. Now it appears that the network will be holding the series until the 2026-27 season due to "limited shelf space" in the 2025-26 TV schedule and "that it would benefit from a longer pre-production window." The project was also set to star Rosa Salazar (Bird Box; Undone) as Veronica "Ronni" Paris, a detective inspector for the New Jersey State Police who has conflicted feelings about working with Einstein, but the actress has asked to depart the project due to the schedule delay.

Acorn TV confirmed the premiere date and released the official trailer for the art world crime drama, Art Detectives, starring and executive produced by Stephen Moyer (True Blood; Sexy Beast). The procedural, set to debut with two episodes on Monday, June 9 in the US and Canada, with additional episodes dropping weekly on Mondays, revolves around the Heritage Crime Unit, a police department hired to solve murders connected to the world of art and antiques.

Canada's CBC has renewed five series, including new procedural hit, Saint-Pierre, starring Allan Hawco and Josephine Jobert, who play seasoned police officers with very different styles who are forced together to solve crimes in the French territory of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon. Saint-Pierre will return for a second season after becoming CBC’s most-watched new series of the year, and will be joined by two more seasons of Wild Cards and new runs for Allegiance, Heartland, and Murdoch Mysteries.

Unfortunately, it's not good news for fans of The Equalizer, which CBS has canceled after 5 seasons. The drama, starring and executive produced by Queen Latifah, is a reimagining of the classic 1980s series centering on the character of Robyn McCall, an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills as a former CIA operative to help those with nowhere else to turn.

PODCASTS/RADIO

On the latest episode of Murder Junction, Vaseem Khan discussed his new psychological thriller, The Girl in Cell A, inspired by great small town novels such as In The Heat of the Night, and the 1874 small town true crime known as The Axe Murders of Saxtown.

Wrong Place, Write Crime host Frank Zafiro welcomed Adam Plantinga to talk about his new book, Hard Town, and the two cops, who are also writers, spoke a little bit of inside baseball about both topics.

Suspense Radio host Tracey Devlyn dived into the darker side of dating with R.G. Belsky and Bonnie Traymore, co-authors of Swipe, a gripping thriller about secrets, swipes, and survival.

Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester celebrated 200 episodes of Read or Dead.

Pick Your Poison host, Dr. Jen Prosser, reported on a compound from the Amazon that combines two plants in a bit of ingenious indigenous pharmacology, and which substance was considered too dangerous for study in communist countries.