THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Production has finished on the Birmingham, AL shoot of the Alec Baldwin and Jim Gaffigan high-stakes action thriller, Crosshairs, from filmmaker Mukunda Michael Dewil (Vehicle 19, The Immaculate Room). The story centers on a New York police detective who finds himself trapped on a park bench, holding a bomb, caught in the crosshairs of a hidden sniper—with no way to explain to the responding police force why there is a dead man at his feet. As tension mounts and time runs out, the detective must navigate an impossible situation where every move could be his last. The film co-stars Sydney Park, Kelly Greyson, Michael Sirow, Kate Linder, Jeremy Warner, and Anthony Del Negro.
Anna Camp (Scream 7) is set to produce and star in Serpent, a psychological thriller adapted from the novel, The Serpent’s Bite, by bestselling author Warren Adler (The War of the Roses). The story follows the harrowing escalation of old resentments and bitter recriminations when an ambitious actress agrees to reunite with her estranged father and troubled brother on a week-long trek through the unforgiving Wyoming wilderness. What begins as a desperate family bonding trip rapidly devolves into savage violence and brutal psychological warfare. Thomas Marchese (Fallen, From Black) will direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jessub Flower (From Black).
Amazon MGM Studios has landed worldwide rights to The Kellys, a new action flick to star Arnold Schwarzenegger and Liam Hemsworth, which will be made available for streaming on Prime Video. Hailing from director Brad Peyton and Thunder Road Films, the story follows Jack Kelly, a disgraced NYC cop whose wife, Molly, is taken hostage by terrorists inside an old armory building. Subsequently, Kelly will have to join forces with the people he fears most to save her: his family.
Mason Thames has signed on for an undisclosed role in the Lionsgate John Wick spinoff, Caine, directed by and starring martial arts master and the franchise’s actor, Donnie Yen. Thames joins Yen and Rina Sawayama (who will reprise her role as Akira), and Dacre Montgomery in the cast. The new film will continue Yen’s story arc following the events of John Wick: Chapter 4, as Caine has been freed from his obligations to The High Table. The screenplay is by Mattson Tomlin, writer of the upcoming The Batman Part II.
NOIR CITY: Boston will return to its home at Cambridge's Brattle Theatre, June 12-14, themed around "musicians." Featured films will include early examples of Hollywood noir like Blues in the Night (1941) to jazz-fueled sixties' gems like All Night Long (1962) and A Man Called Adam (1966). Among the real-life musicians appearing onscreen are Louis Armstrong, Hoagy Carmichael, Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra, and Duke Ellington. The Film Noir Foundation's latest restoration, The Yellow Canary (1963), will be included in the lineup on Saturday night, June 14, on a double bill with 1945's 64-minute The Crimson Canary. As a bonus film, The Brattle will screen 1957's Sweet Smell of Success (starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis) on Monday, June 15 at 8:00 pm.
TELEVISION/STREAMING
Private eye shows continue to be a hot commodity, with the latest project being Suspect, a drama series from Hulu that's based on Scott Turow's 2022 novel. Suspect centers on Pinky, a private investigator who searches for evidence to exonerate a female police chief accused of extorting sex from male officers in exchange for job promotions. Suspect is looking to join a wave of other PI shows including NBC's The Rockford Files, a reboot of the 1970s classic; the single-camera comedy Sunset P.I. launching next season; Netflix's A Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson; ABC's R.J. Decker, headlined by Scott Speedman; and still other PI projects in the pipeline, including a series adaptation of the Adam Brody movie The Kid Detective, also in development at Hulu.
The Intern, described as "a sexy, twisty legal thriller about power, corruption and the true nature of justice," is in the works at Peacock. Based On Michele Campbell’s novel, the story follows Harvard Law student Madison Rivera, who cuts a deal with the DOJ to save her recently arrested brother by infiltrating the chambers of the most powerful judge in Boston, Judge Kathryn Conroy. But what begins as a mission soon veers into obsession and a dangerous game between two brilliant women who are more alike than either will admit. Campbell worked at a Manhattan law firm before spending eight years fighting crime as a federal prosecutor in New York.
ABC is looking to extend its offerings in the legal genre with Holding Court, written/executive produced by Alfredo Barrios Jr. and executive produced by Ross Fineman (The Lincoln Lawyer). The project is a character-driven, one-hour dramedy following a brilliant, stubborn yet book-smart paralegal who teams up with a charismatic, street-smart attorney who barely passed the bar to help run her father’s law firm after his death. The project taps into Barrios Jr.’s background as a Harvard Law-educated attorney who spent five years as a corporate litigator before segueing to writing (Hotel Cocaine, Lyon’s Den, Law & Order, Just Legal, Close to Home, and Justice).
With The Lincoln Lawyer coming to an end, Netflix is looking to add a new legal drama, And Justice for All, a series based on the 1979 movie starring Al Pacino. Written by Jeremy Miller and Dan Cohn (That Was Then), And Justice for All is described as a gritty look at an idealistic attorney’s flawed life as he struggles to fight a corrupted legal system until he finally snaps. Miller and Cohn executive produce with The Lincoln Lawyer EP Ross Fineman. The 1979 movie, written by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson and directed by Norman Jewison, starred Pacino, Jack Warden, and John Forsythe.
Actor-comedian Matt Rogers (No Good Deed) has been tapped as one of the title characters in the upcoming second installment of Prime Video's spy drama series, Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He joins recently cast Francesca Scorsese as Mrs. Smith. The first season starred Mark Eydelshteyn (Mr. Smith) and Talia Ryder (Mrs. Smith) in those roles. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a reimagining of the 2005 New Regency film starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a bored upper middle class married couple, who are surprised to learn that they are assassins belonging to competing agencies.
Masterpiece PBS has renewed The Marlow Murder Club for a fourth season, which will be based on Robert Thorogood’s novel, Murder on the Marlow Belle, along with new original mysteries. Returning cast members include Samantha Bond (Judith Potts), Cara Horgan (Becks Starling), Jo Martin (Suzie Harris) and Natalie Dew (DI Tanika Malik). The new six-episode season begins with the discovery of a body in the river that is soon linked to the Marlow Amateur Dramatics Society and a homegrown Hollywood star. The team must also unravel the truth behind a man’s sudden death at his mother’s wake, who appears to have died from an allergic reaction, but is there more to it than that? And when the co-owner of a vineyard is found dead, drowned in his own wine, the women work to make sense of this seemingly unmotivated murder. Can the amateur sleuths navigate the family scandals and personal betrayals to unmask the killers in their close-knit community? Series regulars Holli Dempsey, Phil Langhorne, and Tijan Sarr also return for Season 4.
NBC has canceled The Hunting Party after two seasons. NBC sibling Universal Television, the studio behind the crime drama procedural starring Melissa Roxburgh, is expected to shop it to other outlets, possibly Netflix. The Hunting Party, created by JJ Bailey, followed a team tasked with tracking down and capturing dangerous killers.
PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
Sadly, Book Riot's Read or Dead podcast, hosted by Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester, announced that after 9 years of bringing mysteries and thrillers to your ears, their latest episode will be their last. In honor of that milestone, they celebrated their favorite Read or Dead memories in the final installment.
On the latest Murder Junction, hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee chatted with Ben Giles about his autobiography detailing his career in extreme cleaning and found out the answers to such questions as "What happens to a decomposing body?" and "How do you remove the dead whale you just ran into with your boat?"
Meet the Thriller Author spoke with Steph Nelson, who discussed her unconventional path to becoming a thriller author after spending years as a stay-at-home mom and beginning her writing journey during the COVID pandemic; and how reading Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and Riley Sager influenced her transition from horror fiction to psychological thrillers.
On the Poisoned Pen Bookstore podcast, Liz Lawson discussed It Happened One Murder with host John Charles.
Ruth Mancini (The Stranger on the Stairs) and Susan Barrett (All Cats are Grey) discussed how they use real crimes as inspiration for their writing on Crime Time FM.
Authors on the Air welcomed Christine Carbo, who grew up in Florida and Montana, earned a pilot’s license, pursued various adventures in Norway, and after a brief stint as a flight attendant, got an MA in English and Linguistics and taught college-level courses for over a decade. Her books include The Wild Inside and three successive Glacier Mysteries.
On the latest Spybrary, Shane Whaley welcomed intelligence historian Dr. Dan Lomas of the University of Nottingham for a deep dive into the real world behind espionage fiction. Rather than choosing spy novels for Dead Drop 5, Dan selected five essential non-fiction intelligence books covering the birth of MI6, Cold War tradecraft, official histories, memoirs, and much more.
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