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
Miramax won an bidding war for Supermax, a "high-concept" spec script written by David Weil and David J. Rosen, best known for their work on the TV series Hunters and Invasion. The new project, Supermax, is described as "a propulsive and twist-laden action thriller" that follows two FBI agents investigating a murder that has taken place in the world’s most secure prison.
Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Issa Rae (Insecure) is set to star in and produce Good People, Bad Things. Written and directed by Scottish filmmaker Ninian Doff (Get Duked!), the projected, described as a "comedic thriller," follows an overwhelmed woman (Rae) who gets lost in a seemingly infinite parking garage and soon discovers she is not alone.
Former NFL star Rob "Gronk" Gronkowski (The Roaring Game), Sistine Stallone (47 Meters Down: Uncaged), and Mischa Barton (The O.C.) are among the latest additions to Bad News on the Doorstep, the 1950s mafia crime thriller starring Chazz Palminteri and Robert Davi and their sons, Dante Palminteri and Nick Davi. Other new additions include Robert Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager), Cerina Vincent (Cabin Fever), Federico Castelluccio (The Sopranos), Vincent Pastore (The Sopranos), Ed Marinaro (Blue Mountain State), John Fiore (The Sopranos), Kea Ho (Junction), Rob Goon (The Roaring Game) and Godsmack lead singer Sully Erna (Bleed for This). Filmed in Rhode Island, Bad News on the Doorstep unfolds as a poignant coming-of-age narrative chronicling the lives of Frank and Gino, two Italian-American high-school football prodigies amidst the gritty backdrop of late 1950s New Jersey. Beyond the gridiron, they confront a myriad of trials, from the complexities of post-football existence to the allure of delving into the underworld of organized crime.
Netflix unveiled the first trailer for the third Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man, once again starring Daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc. "The impossible crime," Craig says in the trailer, referring to a murder he must solve: "This is the Holy Grail." The film will be released globally on December 12 and also stars Josh O’Connor Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church.
Netflix has unveiled the first teaser for The Thursday Murder Club, its anticipated adaptation of the international bestseller by Richard Osman that is set to premiere August 28. Directed by Chris Columbus, the murder mystery stars Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie as four irrepressible retirees — Elizabeth (Mirren), Ron (Brosnan), Ibrahim (Kingsley) and Joyce (Imrie) — who spend their time solving cold case murders for fun. When an unexplained death occurs on their own doorstep, their casual sleuthing takes a thrilling turn as they find themselves with a real whodunit on their hands.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Apple and A+E Studios have set a new, as-yet-untitled series based on the novels of Lars Kepler (a pseudonym for writing partners Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril), starring Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), and Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire). Rowan Joffe and John Hlavin will co-showrun the project and executive produce alongside Tim Van Patten, who will direct the first two episodes. The project tells the story of Jonah Lynn (Schreiber), an ex-soldier turned homicide detective who, tired of working the tough streets of Philadelphia, moves to a small town in Western Pennsylvania for a quiet life. But, as the town and his family come under attack from the diabolically cunning serial killer, Jurek Walter (Graham), Jonah must protect all that he holds dear. When the desperate search for Jurek’s last missing victim forces Jonah to send his adopted daughter, FBI Agent Saga Bauer (Beetz), up against Jurek, how far will Jonah go?
Oscar winner J.K. Simmons has been tapped as the lead of The Westies, MGM+'s upcoming period crime drama series from co-creator, executive producer, and showrunner Chris Brancato. Co-created by Brancato and Michael Panes, The Westies is set in the early 1980s when the construction of the Jacob Javitz Convention Center on the Westies’ home turf in Hell’s Kitchen promises a financial windfall for the Irish-American organized crime gang. Despite being outnumbered 50-to-1 by the Five Families of the Italian mafia, the Westies’ legendary brutality and cunning have given them the leverage necessary to share the spoils through a fragile détente. But internal conflict between the brash younger generation and the old-school leadership threatens to set a match to this powder keg, which will sweep the Westies into the FBI’s ever-deepening investigation into the Italian mafia. Simmons will play Eamon Sweeney, the charismatic but ruthless leader of The Westies whose old-school charm and neighborhood loyalty mask fierce criminal ambition and calculated brutality.
Following the 2024 launch of The Darkness, the Icelandic series based on his Dimma novel series, author Ragnar Jónasson is expanding his partnership with Stampede Ventures and producer John-Paul Sarni via the launch of Dimma Pictures. The new venture will produce film and television projects from Jónasson’s catalogue of IP, as well as writers from across Scandinavia and Europe. As of now, the company has several TV projects in motion, including Jónasson’s psychological thriller, The Girl Who Died; Reykjavík: A Crime Story, co-written by Jónasson and Katrin Jakobsdóttir; and Snowblind, a TV adaptation of Jónasson’s Dark Iceland book series, to star Þorvaldur Davíð Kristjánsson.
CBS's Watson just wrapped its 13-episode first season, but fans will have to wait a bit for the aftermath of the finale that revealed Moriarty’s fate. The medical drama with a Sherlock twist is not on the network's fall schedule and will instead return in January, airing Sundays at 10 p.m. Following CBS’s fall schedule reveal earlier this month, the network’s Entertainment President, Amy Reisenbach, explained that it was due to a full schedule with "no other real logical place for it," primarily because the network will use Watson's fall slot to launch the new Taylor Sheridan-produced music competition series, The Road.
The Indian adaptation of Monk has found its lead detective in Ram Kapoor, who will play Armaan Mistry in the series. Mistry is ostensibly the Indian version of Tony Shalhoub’s Adrian Monk, a detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder, who worked with the San Francisco Police Department on unconventional cases. Mona Singh (Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin) plays ACP Sehmat Siddiqui, while Shikha Talsania (Wake Up Sid) and Kshitish Date (Mulshi Pattern) also star. It marks the first adaptation of the series in South Asia, after the original Monk ran on USA Network from 2002 – 2009 and spawned a movie that aired on Peacock in 2023.
Melissa George (The Mosquito Coast) is set to star in Ms. X, a new crime dramedy commissioned by Warner Bros. Discovery’s TV3 in New Zealand and expected to premiere next spring. Written and created by New Zealanders Hannah Marshall and David de Lautour, Ms. X centers on a suburban mum (George) who teams up with an old high school friend to scare her cheating husband into staying faithful. But when things turn (accidentally) homicidal, she is pulled into a criminal underworld, caught between the cops, the cartel, and a vicious PTA.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
NPR's Terry Gross interviewed James Patterson on Fresh Air about his career and the "voices that keep him up at night."
On the Spybrary podcast, Paul Vidich stopped by to discuss his new novel, The Poet's Game, a contemporary espionage thriller rooted in the tense geopolitics of modern-day Russia and the United States.
Wrong Place, Write Crime host, Frank Zafiro, spoke with Derrick Jackson about his new book, Shadow One, and many of his experiences as an OSI agent that *aren't* in the book.
On Crime Time FM, Thomas Trang chatted with Paul Burke about Dark Neon Dirt, LA heists, Caravaggio, Hollywood money, Elmore Leonard, and Andor.
Authors on the Air welcomed Eliot Parker, author of Double-Crossed, his latest thriller featuring Ronan McCullough.
Pick Your Poison profiled a toxin used by Nazis that's treated with vitamins and is potent enough to kill a moose in 20 minutes; also a poison where the antidote changes the color of your blood and skin.
