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

Oscar winner Nicolas Cage (Longlegs) is starring with Justin Long (Barbarian) and Shelley Hennig (Unfriended) in the action-thriller, Best Pancakes In The County, currently filming in Arkansas. Written and directed by Ken Sanzel (Kill Chain), the film is set over the course of one night at a small-town diner that becomes the center of a deadly standoff involving rogue federal agents, a fast-talking con man with a dangerous past (Cage), and a waitress (Hennig) harboring secrets of her own. As loyalties blur and tensions erupt, survival depends on who can outhink – and outgun – everyone else.


TELEVISION/STREAMING

Amazon MGM Studios is developing Alex Delaware, a TV adaptation of the long-running psychological crime book series by Jonathan Kellerman. The studio has secured the rights to all novels in the series, with the project likely starting off by adapting the first book, 1985’s When the Bough Breaks. The novels focus on brilliant but reluctant L.A. psychologist Alex Delaware, who teams with hard-nosed LAPD detective Milo Sturgis to unravel complex, often disturbing murders by reading the minds, motives, and hidden histories behind the evidence.


NBC has been on a roll lately, announcing several pilots. Among them are Puzzled, from former Charmed showrunner Joey Falco, and What the Dead Know, from Dick Wolf‘s Wolf Entertainment and writer Beth Rinehart (FBI: Most Wanted). Both projects are crime/cop procedurals based on books, Danielle Trussoni’s novel The Puzzle Master and former New York City medical examiner Barbara Butcher’s memoir What the Dead Know, respectively. In Puzzled, after barely escaping a tragic fire, once-promising college athlete Mike Brink is transformed by a traumatic brain injury that gives him the unique ability to see the world in an unexpected way and helps him solve crimes with local police. What the Dead Know centers on death investigator Ava Ledger who is really good with dead bodies--it’s the living that give her trouble. The series follows Ava as she teams with the NYPD to solve their toughest cases.


NBC also handed a drama pilot order to The Rockford Files, a reboot of the classic Stephen J. Cannell series starring James Garner that ran on NBC from 1974-80. The project comes from writer Mike Daniels (The Village), producers Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly (Elementary), and Universal Television. Written by Daniels, The Rockford Files is a contemporary update on the classic series of the same name. Newly paroled after doing time for a crime he didn’t commit, James Rockford returns to his life as a private investigator using his charm and wit to solve cases around Los Angeles. It doesn’t take long for his quest for legitimacy to land him squarely in the crosshairs of both local police and organized crime.


In more NBC news, the network greenlit the drama Protection, from Quantico creator Josh Safran, with Jenna Bush Hager and Universal Television. In Protection, written by Safran, when a U.S. Marshal falls in the line of duty, a seemingly cut-and-dry case turns into a deadly conspiracy as a family of law enforcement agents becomes the target of a mysterious assassin. Bridging personal differences and crossing professional boundaries, the Thornhill family must use the expertise from a lifetime of protecting civilians and politicians to protect one another and bring the killer to justice … even if it means betraying their sworn code.


Sky gave the go-ahead to the long-gestating Girl with the Dragon Tattoo TV series from Behind Her Eyes duo Steve Lightfoot and Angela LaManna and The Crown producer Left Bank. The big-budget adaptation comes fifteen years after the movie starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, which, as with the new TV show, came from Sony Pictures Entertainment. Three movies were made from the Stieg Larsson trilogy, finishing in 2018, and a Swedish version was also made with Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace. Casting has not yet been set for the TV version, which is described as a “bold and contemporary reimagining” adaptation. Larsson's story follows lead Mikael Blomkvist’s investigation to find out what happened to a girl from a wealthy family who had disappeared forty years earlier, and recruits the help of Lisbeth Salander.


Apple TV has given a series order to a thriller starring and executive produced by Dakota Fanning (All Her Fault). The untitled project has Fanning starring as an undercover Treasury agent in a multi-billion-dollar international conglomerate. With the company's world-changing political and criminal tentacles, the agent becomes conflicted between her mission and a belief that her principal target, the heir apparent to all that corrupt power, is at his core a good man and worthy of her love.


NBC also gave a green light to an untitled one-hour drama from The Brave creator Dean Georgaris, longtime Davis Entertainment President John Fox, and Universal Television. Written by Georgaris and Fox, the untitled series is inspired by the work of expert profiler and author Dr. Ann Burgess, subject of the 2024 Hulu docuseries, Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer. Her work also served as inspiration for David Fincher’s Netflix series, Mindhunter. In the NBC drama, Professor Georgia Ryan is a trailblazing psychologist who challenges the field of criminology by shifting the investigative focus to the victim rather than just the perpetrator, in order to uncover the crucial clues that more traditional methods leave behind. Alongside her team, this pioneering expert consults with the FBI to solve the most baffling and elusive cases.


A trailer dropped for the fourth season of The Lincoln Lawyer, which premieres Thursday, Feb. 5. The new season sees Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and his team working tirelessly to prove his innocence in the murder of a former client.


Turner Classic Movies is having a "murder" day on Thursday, January 22, from 6am to 8pm ET. It starts off with The Penguin Pool Murder from 1932, the first film appearance of the character of Hildegarde Withers, the schoolteacher and sleuth based on the character from the 1931 novel of the same name by Stuart Palmer. Four more Withers movies follow on the schedule, followed by four Miss Marple movies starring Margaret Rutherford as Agatha Christie's senior sleuth, beginning with Murder She Said from 1961.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

NPR's Fresh Air interviewed Liz Moore, author of God of the Woods and Long Bright River, who described the rare "flow state" of writing, adding that writing is mostly labor, but "2% of the time, usually at the very beginning of a book and the very end of a book, it feels like flying."


Author S.J. Rozan spoke with Club Calvi on CBS News about her new Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery novel, First Do No Harm.


On the Poisoned Pen podcast, Barbara Peters interviewed Douglas Preston, the author of The Monster of Florence.


What if someone else could use your identity as a spy? In the latest episode of Spybrary, guest host Bryan Boling sat down with author David Goodman to talk about his debut novel, A Reluctant Spy.


On Crime Time FM, Brian Price chatted with Paul Burke about Fatal Shot; Mel Cotton; chemistry, biology, and the science of crime; Terry Pratchett; and common science mistakes by crime writers.


The latest episode of Murder Junction featured bestselling author Laura Dave about her new thriller, The First Time I Saw Him, and how she was cut out of a TV show based on her books.


On Wrong Place, Write Crime, host Frank Zafiro spoke with Thomas McKinnon about his debut thriller, In Spite of Thunder.


Want to know what toxin affects humans, but not bees? What contaminated substance is so valuable, people risk their lives to collect it? What popular natural substance was used in biological warfare in wars between Russia and Ukraine in the past? Dr. Jen Prosser investigates on the latest Pick Your Poison podcast.

 
THEATRE

Two-time Academy Award winner Adrien Brody (The Brutalist, The Pianist) will make his Broadway debut this March in Olivier Award nominee Lindsey Ferrentino’s play, The Fear of 13. Based on David Sington’s documentary about a falsely accused death row inmate, The Fear of 13 will be directed by David Cromer (The Band’s Visit, Bug) and also star Tessa Thompson (Hedda, Netflix’s His & Hers) in her Broadway debut. The 16-week limited engagement begins previews on Thursday, March 19, at the James Earl Jones Theatre with an opening night set for Wednesday, April 15. The production will partner with the Innocence Project, the organization founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld that uses DNA and other scientific advancements to uncover wrongful convictions.