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

Lee Isaac Chung (Twisters) is in talks to direct an Ocean’s Eleven prequel for Warner Brothers Pictures, based on a script by Carrie Solomon (A Family Affair). Plot details haven't been revealed, but the new film is known to be set in Europe in the 1960s. The 2001 film followed Danny Ocean, a gangster, who rounds up a gang of associates to stage a sophisticated and elaborate casino heist which involves robbing three Las Vegas casinos simultaneously during a popular boxing event.

Britton Webb has joined the thriller Don’t Forget Me Tomorrow, replacing Jesse Kove, who was previously announced for the project. The story, based on author A.L. Jackson’s novel of the same name, follows Dakota Cooper (Charlotte Kirk), a single mother trying to rebuild her life in a small town when a mysterious figure from her past returns, forcing her to confront old secrets, rekindled love, and new danger. Webb plays Ryder Nash, the enigmatic ex-con whose return threatens to unravel and ultimately redefine Dakota’s carefully rebuilt life.

Max Martini (Pacific Rim) and Brianna Hildebrand (Deadpool) are starring in the thriller Bethesda, the directorial debut from Andrew and Isaac Lewis (aka The Lewis Brothers), from a screenplay by Matt Black. Bethesda is described as "a neo-Western thriller set in desolate West Texas in the early ’90s that centers on a dying ex-Texas Ranger with a violent past and the young woman he rescues from a life of drugs and forced prostitution." After killing the brother of a border-town crime lord, the two broken strangers go into hiding from the pseudo-philosophical assassin hired to kill them. While on the run, "they find redemption within each other in this dark and violent land where the line between good and evil is blurred, where the only rule is that of survival."

NOIR CITY returns to Chicago's Music Box Theatre, September 5-11. Screenings from Friday, September 5, through Sunday, September 7, will be hosted by Film Noir Foundation president and founder Eddie Muller, while screenings Monday, September 8, through Thursday, September 11, will be presented by FNF board member Alan K. Rode. The series kicks off with The Grifters (1990), based on a book by Jim Thompson with a screenplay by Donald Westlake, which stars John Cusack as a young grifter blithely scamming his way through sunny Southern California, until he gets trapped in a battle of wills and wiles waged by the women in his life: mother Lilly (Anjelica Huston) and girlfriend Myra (Annette Bening).

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting) is set to play legendary literary detective Sherlock Holmes in Season 2 of the CBS series, Watson. Carlyle will appear in a recurring guest role, working opposite series lead Morris Chestnut, who plays Dr. John Watson. The investigative medical drama is a modern version of one of history’s greatest detectives as he turns his attention from solving crimes to solving medical mysteries. With his eyes fixed on the future, Watson faces an unexpected twist when Sherlock Holmes, who was presumed dead, resurfaces, forcing him to confront a buried secret from his past — one that lies hidden within his own body.

Slow Horses writer and executive producer, Will Smith, will be leaving the drama after Season 5, which will premiere this fall on Apple TV+. Smith has guided the faithful screen adaptation of Mick Herron’s series of spy novels from the beginning and has won an Emmy for writing. Smith is handing over the reins for Season 6 to Gaby Chiappe, and Ben Vanstone for Season 7. Slow Horses follows a group of reprobate MI5 rejects that have been sidelined at Slough House, a forgotten outpost far from MI5’s Regent’s Park HQ. Led by Gary Oldman’s sardonic Jackson Lamb, the "slow horses" of Slough House prove weirdly effective, often confounding MI5’s Second Desk Diana Taverner (Kristen Scott-Thomas) and, as of Season 4, its First Desk Claude Whelan (James Tallis). Series regulars include Jonathan Pryce, Saskia Reeves, Jack Lowden, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Tom Brooke, and Ruth Bradley.

The new adaptation of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley bestselling novels from BBC One issued an official release date and trailer for the upcoming reboot. The crime drama follows police detective Tommy Lynley, an outsider in the force, mostly because of his aristocratic upbringing, and his ill-matched partner, Barbara Havers, a maverick sergeant with a working-class background with whom he seemingly has nothing in common. Nevertheless, the incompatible duo become a formidable team, bonded by their desire to see justice done. The series will premiere on Thursday, September 4, on BritBox in the U.S. and Canada.

Netflix’s Untamed has been renewed for Season 2, shifting what was planned as a limited series into an ongoing show as Eric Bana’s National Parks Service investigator heads to a new park after solving a mystery in Yosemite. Season 2 will pick up after Bana’s character has already been working at different parks, so the location for Season 2 won’t be the exact next destination after Yosemite.

NBC announced its fall premiere dates, which includes one small surprise: the three-hour Law & Order Thursday lineup will be back on NBC's fall schedule as of September 25. Law & Order: Organized Crime, which moved from NBC to Peacock ahead of its fifth season a year ago, will return to the broadcast network. Its fifth season, which recently wrapped its run on the NBCUniversal streamer, will get a second viewing on NBC, airing in its old Thursday 10PM slot behind Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU. Peacock has not made a renewal call on Organized Crime yet, with the show’s performance likely to inform NBCUniversal’s decision whether to pick up Season 6 of the drama for Peacock — or NBC.

Fox has unveiled its premiere dates for the 2025-26 season, which includes the season 2 premiere of the Canadian series, Murder in a Small Town, set to air Tuesday nights at 8pm ET.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

Dan Fesperman chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about his new spy novel, Pariah; Eastern Europe; fiction as the second draft of history; facades of democracy; comedy and Hollywood; and The Baltimore Banner.

The latest Murder Junction featured thriller writer Nick Harkaway about his latest novel, Karla's Choice, and following in his father John Le Carré's footsteps by bringing George Smiley back to readers.

Meet the Thriller Author welcomed Ty Hutchinson, known for his high-concept, fast-paced novels, to talk about his latest book, DarkBright.

Authors on the Air spoke with Polly Stewart about The Felons' Ball, her new Southern thriller with secrets, suspense, and small-town danger after a moonshine empire, a forbidden romance, and a murder on a houseboat collide.

On the Pick Your Poison podcast, Dr. Jen Prosser investigated which dictator's autopsy was published on the front page of the newspaper, why he hated doctors, and what that had to do with his death; as well as what leeches were used for in 1950.