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

Golden Globe winner Taron Egerton (Carry-On) is joining Channing Tatum and Zazie Beetz in Kockroach, taking over from Oscar Isaac who was announced in late August but is out due to scheduling conflicts. The film is an adaptation of the novel by William Lashner, with Matt Ross (Captain Fantastic) directing from a screenplay by Jonathan Ames (You Were Never Really Here). Per the synopsis: “Kockroach is the story of a mysterious stranger who takes on New York’s criminal underworld, transforming himself into a larger-than-life crime boss in a city where power is everything.”


Aura Entertainment has acquired Wildcat, a thriller starring Kate Beckinsale, which will release in theaters and on digital on November 25. The film follows an ex–black ops team that reunites to pull off a desperate heist and save the life of an eight-year-old girl. Directed by James Nunn (One Shot) and written by Dominic Burns (Allies), the cast also includes Tom Bennett (House of the Dragon), Alice Krige (Star Trek: First Contact), Edmund Kingsley (The Witcher), Matt Willis (Missing You), Lewis Tan (Mortal Kombat franchise) and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones).


David Gordon Green has committed to direct Supermax, the high-concept thriller that Miramax has fast-tracked for a spring production start. The action thriller was scripted by David Weil and David J. Rosen, whose team-ups include the TV series Hunters and Invasion. Miramax won the spec in a bidding battle last May. The project is described as a propulsive thriller with two FBI agents investigating a murder perpetrated within the world’s most secure prison.


NOIR CITY returns to The Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, November 14-16, for a three-day extravaganza. Film Noir Foundation president Eddie Muller hosts the noir lineup that shines the spotlight on women whose cinematic legacy is entwined with film noir. Festival highlights include three rarely screened films: tiki-noir Hell's Half Acre (1954) with Evelyn Keyes and Marie Windsor, John Farrow's Faustian tale Alias Nick Beal (1949) with Audrey Totter, and Max Ophüls' suspenseful 1949 film The Reckless Moment featuring one of Joan Bennett's finest performances. A 35mm restoration by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and funded by the FNF will also play: Joseph Losey's The Prowler (1951), written by Dalton Trumbo with Van Heflin and Evelyn Keyes in the leads. More information and passes are available on The Colonial Theatre's website.


TELEVISION/STREAMING

Following Universal’s re-imagining of late author Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, Zero Gravity Management (Ozark) is teaming with UK's Romulus Films on a TV series about the same author’s seminal thriller, The Odessa File. The conspiracy thriller adaptation will follow freelance journalist Peter Miller as he infiltrates a shadowy organization of former Nazi SS officers in 1960s Germany, putting himself on a collision course with one of history’s most notorious war criminals. Simon Fellows (Steel Country) is penning the adaptation. The project is currently in the casting phase, and producers are in discussions with broadcasters and streaming networks for what is envisioned as an initial eight-episode season with plans for three subsequent seasons that will carry the story through to the present day.


Robert Enright‘s Sam Pope bestseller action-thriller novels are being adapted for TV. Avatar Entertainment has acquired rights to the series, which comprises 15 books and follows Sam Pope, a military-trained assassin who goes from the UK’s deadliest weapon to its most wanted man as he wages a one-man war on organized crime. The Jack Reacher-style stories see him face off against gangsters, traffickers, and international terrorists, as Pope runs from authorities and his dark past. The novels include titles such as The Night Shift, The Takers, Man of My Word, The Final Mile, and Too Far Gone. They’re broadly set around London and across Europe.


Netflix has landed a new thriller series starring Adam Driver. The streamer has picked up Rabbit, Rabbit, a hostage crime drama that is described as in the vein of Dog Day Afternoon and handed the project a straight-to-series order. The contemporary drama is set at a truck stop in southern Illinois. When an escaped convict is cornered by law enforcement at a truck stop, he takes hostages in an effort to bargain for his freedom. But the standoff soon escalates into an unmanageable social experiment with his captives, as well as an emotional poker match with a veteran FBI Crisis Negotiator trained in “tactical empathy.” It is being written by Peter Craig, who wrote the screenplay for Top Gun: Maverick and created the Apple series Dope Thief, and will be directed by Philip Barantini, the man behind the infamous one-shot style of Netflix’s smash hit British series, Adolescence. 

Deadline reported that ABC is developing Roman Law, a legal drama from writer and executive producer Jeremy Svenson. The logline for Roman Law is as follows: "When her father is exposed as a lifelong fraud who’s been practicing law without a license, his once-adoring daughter, who just finished law school to follow in his footsteps, must take over his financially troubled practice to save her family home and keep the man she thought she knew from going to prison."


Two more familiar faces from the first season of Apple's comedy-drama crime series, Bad Monkey, are set to return for Season 2, a new original story after Season 1, which was based on Carl Hiaasen’s bestselling novel Bad Monkey. Natalie Martinez will once again be a series regular, reprising her role as Rosa, while Season 1 recurring guest star Charlotte Lawrence, who played rebellious teen Caitlin, has been promoted to a series regular for the new season. They join two other returning Season 1 cast members, star and executive producer Vince Vaughn as Miami detective-turned-health inspector Andrew Yancy, as well as John Ortiz, who also has been upped from recurring to series regular. He plays Rogelio, a police detective and Yancy’s best friend. In addition to the quartet of returning stars, Season 2 of Bad Monkey will feature new cast members John Malkovich, Yvonne Strahovski, Zavior Phillips, and Nate Jackson.


The original Leroy Jethro Gibbs is about to make a comeback. Mark Harmon is set to reprise the role he played for 18 seasons during the first crossover event between NCIS and NCIS: Origins set for Nov. 11 on CBS. The Veterans Day crossover will feature the younger Gibbs (Austin Stowell) and his team investigating the small-town death of a naval officer in the '90s on Origins – a case that will be unexpectedly reopened in the present day on NCIS. Because of the crossover, Origins will air for one night only at 8 p.m. ET, followed by NCIS at 9 p.m. ET.  Harmon, an executive producer on both series, has not appeared as Gibbs in CBS primetime since his brief appearance in the Origins pilot last year. He last appeared on NCIS in 2021, when his character decided to leave the agency.


ABC has set midseason premiere dates for its new and returning series, including the return of High Potential, as well as new seasons of Will Trent and The Rookie. Will Trent (Season 4) and The Rookie (Season 8) will again be paired on Tuesday nights beginning January 6, with High Potential, which returns for the continuation of its second season.


Hulu has renewed its hit original series Only Murders in the Building for a sixth season, confirming rumors that the show is heading to London. The 20th Television comedy’s sixth season will consist of 10 episodes. In the season 5 episode titled “The House Always,” Steve Martin as Charles-Haden Savage, Martin Short as Oliver Putnam, and Selena Gomez as Mabel Mora close out the latest mystery involving the senseless murder of the Arconia’s doorman, Lester (Teddy Coluca). The connection to London is revealed later in the episode once Lester’s murderer is brought to justice, and a new victim is revealed. In addition to the core trio and Michael Cyril Creighton, Season 5 also starred Meryl Streep and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Richard Kind, Nathan Lane, Bobby Cannavale, Renée Zellweger, Logan Lerman, Christoph Waltz, Téa Leoni, Keegan-Michael Key, Beanie Feldstein, Dianne Wiest, and Jermaine Fowler.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

On Crime Time FM, Val McDermid chatted with Craig Sisterson about her novel, The Silent Bones; Karen Pirie and TV shows; building a career; editors; ground-breaking fiction and more.


Debbi Mack's latest guest on the Crime Cafe podcast was retired Los Angeles based investigator and sentencing mitigation specialist turned crime writer, Patrick H. Moore.


Authors on the Air spoke with Vanessa Lillie, author of Blood Sisters, a new series featuring archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker, which is centered on the stories of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.


On Read or Dead, hosts Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed their very first book club pick, Fiend, by Alma Katsu.


Dr. Jen Prosser investigated what poisoned advice was given by a chatbot, what drug toxicity is also a euphemism for trite or boring, and what toxin is in the Dead Sea on the Pick Your Poison podcast.