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

After years of developing a sequel to his iconic crime drama, Heat, director Michael Mann looks to be closer to getting the project made. Deadline reported that Amazon MGM Studios division, United Artists, is in talks to pick up the project with financing and distribution. Heat 2 had been set up at Warner Bros, but when the two sides couldn’t come to terms on a budget, the studio allowed Mann to take the proposed package out to other studios. The plan is to shoot the film some time next year, with Leonardo DiCaprio in early talks to star in the role of Chris Shiherlis, the character played by Val Kilmer in the 1995 original.  


George Clooney shared an update on Ocean’s 14, revealing that the sequel film is expected to start shooting sometime in 2026 after Warner Bros. approved the budget for the next follow-up to the heist film trilogy. The Ocean’s franchise began in 2001 with Ocean’s Eleven, a remake of the 1960 heist film starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr., followed by Ocean's Twelve in 2004 and Ocean's Thirteen in 2007. The 2001 remake, directed by Steven Soderbergh, featured Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, and Don Cheadle and followed Danny Ocean (George Clooney), a recently paroled con artist who orchestrates a complex scheme to simultaneously rob the vaults of three major Las Vegas casinos.


Meanwhile, the Ocean's Eleven prequel project at Warner Bros has landed both Twisters director Lee Isaac Chung and actor Bradley Cooper, who is in negotiations to star alongside Margot Robbie. No plot details have been disclosed, other than it takes place prior to the events of Ocean's Eleven and will begin shooting next year. Sources say Cooper has been close with Robbie over the years and always wanted to work together, and this seemed the perfect opportunity.


British actor Solly McLeod, best known for starring in the ITVX and PBS Masterpiece miniseries, Tom Jones, has joined the feature film, Anxious People, which is in production in London. McLeod joins previously announced Angelina Jolie, Aimee Lou Wood, Jason Segel, Joanna Scanlan, Lennie James, Stephanie Allynne, Jessica Gunning, and Carol Kane in the cast. The story takes place the day before Christmas Eve, when investment banker Zara begrudgingly finds herself mingling with a group of strangers at an open house. After a reluctant bank robber, Grace, inadvertently takes the group hostage, chaos and oversharing ensues, secrets are revealed, and literally nothing goes according to plan.


TELEVISION/STREAMING

Paramount Television Studios is set to adapt the spy thriller The Ambler Warning, based on Robert Ludlum’s bestselling novel, with Jason Horwitch (Echo 3, Fight Night) attached to write the adaptation and serve as showrunner. The project reimagines the book’s male protagonist, Hal Ambler, as Erica Ambler, played by Jessica Biel. While on assignment, CIA Case Officer Ambler (Biel) suffers a devastating injury, waking up without her memories, in custody at a supermax prison for the world’s deadliest spies. Erica must figure out who she is and who she can trust, while piecing together the clues that will prevent a lethal attack on American soil.


Subscription streaming outlet MHz Choice, which brings international television to North American viewers, has acquired rights to Camilla Läckberg’s Erica, the first French-language adaptation of her best-selling Swedish mysteries. The six-episode series encompasses stories from three of Läckberg’s novels – The Ice Princess, The Preacher, and The Stonecutter. Led by Julie De Bona (The Count of Monte Cristo) as Erica and Grégory Fitoussi (Nine Perfect Strangers) as Captain Patrick Saab, the drama is set to premiere on MHz Choice in early 2026. In the series, successful writer Erica Faure returns to her hometown to find her friend Alexandra dead. Convinced it wasn’t suicide, she launches an investigation, but her past and present are soon entangled and her life is upended by meeting the handsome police captain Saab.


StudioCanal and Strong Film & Television have locked up the rights to Robin Stevens’s Murder Most Unladylike books and are developing a children’s TV series. The two companies have enlisted Emmy-winner Anna McCleery (Free Rein) to write the adaptation. The series is pitched as Enola Holmes meets Agatha Christie, following two rebellious 1930s teen female detectives, Hazel and Daisy, as they unravel murder mysteries. McCleery has penned a six-part series, with each story playing out over two 45-minute episodes. With twelve books to draw material from, the hope is that Murder Most Unladylike can be "a returnable series."

Anna Kendrick (Woman of the Hour, Pitch Perfect) and J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, Westies) will star in a geo-political thriller drama, Embassy. The six-part series finds Layla (Kendrick), a sharp and resourceful American diplomat, facing an impossible choice when armed mercenaries storm the U.S. Embassy in London:  protect the U.S. Ambassador (Simmons) or follow his orders to exfiltrate a high value asset being held at the embassy. As a larger conspiracy unfolds, Layla must rely on her instincts—and the reluctant help of her ex-fiancé, a British SAS soldier—in the tense hours before extraction.”


Michael C. Hall will continue his killing spree as everyone’s favorite fictional serial killer, Dexter Morgan, for a second season of Showtime‘s Dexter: Resurrection, after the show's renewal. The series takes place weeks after Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) takes a bullet to the chest from his own son and awakens from a coma to find Harrison (Jack Alcott) gone without a trace. Realizing the weight of what he put his son through, Dexter sets out for New York City, determined to find him and make things right. But closure won’t come easily. When Miami Metro’s Angel Batista (David Zayas) arrives with questions, Dexter realizes his past is catching up to him. As father and son navigate their darkness in the city that never sleeps, they soon find themselves mired deeper than they ever imagined — and that the only way out is together.


Nearly a year since Prime Video‘s Cross premiered, it seems fans will have to wait four more months to watch Season 2. The crime drama starring Aldis Hodge will return on Wednesday, February 11, with the first three episodes and new episodes to follow weekly, leading to the season finale on March 18. The project was created and is showrun and written by Ben Watkins, based on the characters from James Patterson’s best-selling Alex Cross book series. Hodge leads the cast in the titular role of Alex Cross, a brilliant homicide detective and forensic psychologist, uniquely capable of digging into the minds of murderers to identify and catch them. In Season 2, Cross is in pursuit of a ruthless vigilante who is hunting down corrupt billionaire magnates.


Sony Pictures Television and Hasbro Entertainment are creating a scripted adaptation of the classic murder mystery board game, Clue, from writer/executive producer Dana Fox (Wicked) and director/executive producer Nicholas Stoller (You’re Cordially Invited). The news follows on the heels of Netflix greenlighting an unscripted Clue series, also from Sony TV and Hasbro Entertainment. Clue brings a modern twist to the colorful cast of iconic characters and follows a group of strangers invited to an eccentric billionaire’s murder mystery night to solve the famous questions — who, where and with what — but they quickly discover that nothing is what it seems to be, and the stakes are even higher than life or death.

Prime Video has opted not to proceed with second seasons of Countdown, starring Jensen Ackles, and Butterfly, headlined by Daniel Dae Kim. Both shows broke into Nielsen Top 10 for Streaming Originals, but apparently the decision came down to total global viewership. Countdown followed LAPD detective Mark Meachum (Ackles), recruited to a secret task force, alongside undercover agents from all branches of law enforcement, to investigate after an officer with the Department of Homeland Security is murdered in broad daylight. Butterfly is a character-driven spy thriller that explores complex family dynamics within the treacherous world of global espionage.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

Jake Arnott chatted with Crime Time FM host, Paul Burke, about his new novel Blood Rival; Sophocles; noir; Blue Lights; James Ellroy, and more.


On the latest Murder Junction, Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee spoke with thriller writing legend Patricia Cornwell about her career and her most famous character, Kay Scarpetta, featured in her latest novel, Sharp Force, as well as a soon-to-be-aired TV series starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis.

On NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, host Scott Simon chatted with Anna North about her novel, Bog Queen, in which a modern investigator is called to examine an ancient body found in a British bog.


Host Alan Peterson of Meet the Thriller Author interviewed Traci Hunter Abramson, a former CIA officer, longtime high school swimming coach, and the award-winning author of more than forty-five bestselling novels. Her latest release, Victim #8, follows military aide Luke Steele and FBI Special Agent Amberlyn Reiner as they go undercover to stop a conspiracy that could lead to a nuclear strike on the United States.

On the Poisoned Pen podcast, host Barbara Peters chatted with British author Martin Edwards, President of the Detection Club, recipient of the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, and author of several standalone novels and series including the Harry Devlin novels and Lake District series.

On the Get to Know podcast, Kathleen Antrim and DP Lyle spoke with author Carter Wilson, the author of twisty psychological thrillers.

On Criminal Mischief, forensic psychologist Dr. Katherine Ramsland discussed how she includes a unique forensic method in each novel of her crime series, "The Nut Cracker Investigations."