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
In a competitive situation, Amazon MGM Studios has secured film rights to Code Black, a new short story by Harrison Query, a deal believed to be one of the biggest of all time for a short story. Jake Gyllenhaal's Nine Stories will develop the political thriller as a starring vehicle for the Oscar nominee, under its first-look deal with the studio. In Code Black, the country’s top heart surgeon is flown to D.C. to perform a high-stakes operation, finding himself led into a trap where his guile and genius become the only way to stop a plot that threatens both his family and the nation. Query will adapt the screenplay.
Carla Gugino is the latest to come aboard as a co-star opposite Brad Pitt in Netflix's The Adventures of Cliff Booth, directed by David Fincher. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Elizabeth Debicki, and Scott Caan have also boarded the project, from a script by Quentin Tarantino. Plot details are vague, but sources say the film will follow one of Tarantino’s most iconic characters as he serves as a Hollywood fixer in a follow-up to Pitt’s Oscar-winning turn in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It is unknown who Gugino will be playing in the new film, which is expected to begin production later this year.
Theo Rossi, Billy Campbell, and Rosaline Elbay have joined the feature thriller, A Better Place, from Virgo Films. Written and directed by Anton Sigurdsson (Women), the pic follows a disgraced deputy, his anxious partner, and a sharp-tongued female prisoner who cover up a hit-and-run, only to spiral into paranoia, greed, and buried secrets that tear them apart.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Tommy and Tuppence, Agatha Christie's crime-fighting couple, are returning to the screen. BritBox has greenlit a six-part series that will reimagine Tommy and Tuppence Beresford in the modern world, more than a century after they first appeared together in Christie’s The Secret Adversary. Casting is underway with filming expected to begin later this year, set in Hampstead, a leafy and affluent corner of north London. Tommy and Tuppence have appeared in numerous adaptations over the years, most recently being played by David Walliams and Jessica Raine in Partners in Crime, the 2015 BBC series. A 1983 series, titled Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime, aired on ITV, starring James Warwick and Francesca Annis in the title roles.
Paramount+ UK & Ireland has commissioned a UK thriller series, The Revenge Club (w/t), with Slow Horses and Peaky Blinders star Aimée-Ffion Edwards and Line Of Duty's Martin Compston in the lead roles of Emily and Calum. Based on the upcoming debut novel, The Othello Club, by J.D. Pennington, the series follows six strangers brought together by a divorce support group who quickly transform from therapy-seeking victims into architects of retribution. With little in common beyond their pain, they form an unlikely bond, and what began as a cathartic outlet quickly spirals into something far more dangerous. Joining Edwards and Compston as the other members of the club are BAFTA and Emmy winner Meera Syal (Goodness Gracious Me) as Rita, Sharon Rooney (Barbie) as Rachel, Douglas Henshall (Shetland) as Steve, Chaneil Kular (Sex Education) as Tej, and Amit Shah (Mr Bates vs. The Post Office) as Malcolm.
Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo's return to television and a spinoff of the NCIS franchise, Tony & Ziva, now has a premiere date of September 4, with three episodes exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and a number of territories. Following the premiere, new episodes will drop weekly on Thursdays, with the season finale October 23. In the offshoot, former NCIS agents Tony (Weatherly) and Ziva (de Pablo) had been raising their daughter in Paris when an attack on Tony’s security company sends them on the run across Europe, trying to figure out who is after them and maybe even learn to trust each other again so they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after. Tony & Ziva is the first series in the NCIS franchise not to air on CBS, and it's unclear yet whether the show will get a special airing on the network.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
Mark Billingham chatted with Paul Burke on Crime Time FM about his new thriller, What the Night Brings, donuts, longevity, opening scenes, and "please don't do spoilers."
On Wrong Place, Write Crime, Frank Zafiro spoke with author Colleen Coble about her Tupelo Grove mysteries series and much more.
Murder Junction featured a Capital Crime special featuring authors Jón Atli Jónasson, Ruth Mancini, and Anna Bailey, and festival organizers David Headley and Lizzie Curle.
