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

Michael Keaton is set to direct and star opposite Morgan Freeman in Rode to Ruin, an original Western thriller written by R. Dean McCreary. Keaton will portray retired Marshal Henry Tillman, and Freeman is a wanted outlaw named Joseph Mulberry. The U.S. Marshal searched forty years for his wife’s killer, and the cold trail finally heats up and leads him to an aging outlaw losing his memory – and to a buried truth neither man may survive. Their reunion marks the first time in nearly four decades that the two acclaimed actors have shared the screen (they did Clean and Sober together in 1988).


Florian Zeller’s upcoming psychological thriller, Bunker, starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, is set to world premiere in competition at the Venice International Film Festival on September 8. The film, which Zeller wrote, produced and directed, follows the emotional and moral challenges faced by a couple in an increasingly uncertain world. Bardem plays Miguel, a successful London architect, who considers a prestigious offer to build a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire. The project causes his wife Sofia (Cruz) to question their relationship of seventeen years as they are drawn deeper into a life of extreme wealth, paranoia, and fear. The intrusion of an unsettling neighbor becomes another source of anxiety.

A first trailer was released for the action-thriller film, Father Joe, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Al Pacino, and teen Ever Anderson, daughter of Milla Jovovich and filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson. Sutherland plays “a man of faith who wages a violent war against Manhattan’s criminal underworld, putting him on a collision course with a powerful mob boss while guiding a young woman caught between danger and redemption.” As with the thriller Bunker, referenced above, the film is premiering this week at the Venice Film Festival.


Principal photography has just completed in and around Norfolk, Virginia, on the dark thriller, America’s Favorite, starring Dane DeHaan (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), Maddie Hasson (Malignant), Paul Roffman (Girl), Greg Kinnear (Black Bird), and Dennis Quaid (Reagan). The film will follow Peter Bale (De Haan), a reporter-turned TV host who tries to revive his career by investigating a series of murders during a live broadcast, only to uncover a deeper conspiracy tied to a powerful media mogul. 


TELEVISION/STREAMING

ABC is developing The Undertaker, a police procedural based on the Swiss series, Der Bestatter, from writer Gabriel Garza (The Winchesters, The Flash), director Hanelle M. Culpepper (Paradise, Star Trek: Picard), 20th Television, and Elevate Entertainment. The Undertaker will follow Luke Conrad, a former police detective who takes over his family’s funeral home business and can’t resist investigating the deaths that come through the door. Garza will serve as writer and executive producer, with Culpepper directing and executive producing.


CBS's Elsbeth is gearing up for its Season 4 premiere on October 8 with the first list of guest stars, including Nicole Scherzinger (The Masked Singer), Nicholas Braun (Succession), New York Knicks star OG Anunoby, and Jemima Kirke (Girls). Carrie Preston returns as Elsbeth Tascioni, the brilliant yet unconventional consent decree attorney working with the NYPD, led by her boss, Captain C.W. Wagner (Wendell Pierce), to track down New York’s most entitled murderers utilizing her unique, intuitive point of view. Scherzinger will appear in the Season 4 premiere as Serena Collyer, a popular and highly paid relationship counselor whose torrid affair with an old love leads to murder.


CBS unveiled the first trailer for Season 2 of the procedural, Marshals, which stars Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton. Marshals returns on October 4, and the show has some new cast members, including Marque Richardson as Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Burns, while Morgan Lindholm’s role as Maddie, the bartender at the local watering hole Bullet ’N Barrel and daughter of Cal, is being expanded.


Paramount+ has officially renewed MobLand for a third season ahead of the crime drama’s Season 2 premiere on Sept. 18. Also confirmed is the return of Tom Hardy as the Harrigan family’s loyal fixer Harry da Souza, alongside Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren as the crime family’s patriarch and matriarch, Conrad and Maeve Harrigan. MobLand was renewed for a second season last year but temporarily derailed by a behind-the-scenes drama involving Hardy, who seemed to be on his way out after friction between him and the series’ writer, executive producer, and showrunner Jez Butterworth. Season 2 also stars Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Mandeep Dhillon, Jasmine Jobson, Teddie Allen, Emmett J. Scanlan, Johnny Flynn, Ophelia Lovibond, Janet McTeer, and Toby Jones.


David Zayas is returning to his fan-favorite role of Angel Batista for the second season of Showtime's Dexter: Resurrection. However, it is unknown how Batista will be brought back after his tragic Season 1 demise. In the second season of the series, Dexter is caught between two killers – one notorious and the other terrorizing New York in ways no one ever anticipated – all while battling his greatest enemy yet: a midlife crisis. Meanwhile, Dexter's son, Harrison (Jack Alcott), continues his own pursuit of justice as father and son face their darkest chapter. Brian Cox stars as The New York Ripper; Dan Stevens as The Five Borough Killer; and Gabriel Luna as Ray Ballard, who operates under the name The Sleepy-Eyed Stranger.


Production has officially begun in Prague on the new Netflix TV series adapted from the Dan Brown novel, The Secret of Secrets, featuring Morgan Spector as Robert Langdon. In addition to Spector, the series regular cast includes Rebecca Hall as Katherine Solomon, Cherry Jones as Heide Nagel, Corey Stoll as Everett Finch, Rob Delaney as Jonas Faukman, and Abbey Lee as Sasha Vesna. Additional casting was announced this past week, including Mamadou Athie, who recurs as Michael Harris, and Ben Levi Ross as Alex Conan, also in a recurring role. They will be joined by Anamaria Marinca, who will play Dr. Gessner; Richard Sammel, who will play Karl Muller; and Elena Saurel, who will play Susan Housemore. In Brown’s novel, symbologist Robert Langdon races against ancient forces and time to rescue a missing scientist and her groundbreaking manuscript whose discoveries have the power to forever change humanity’s understanding of the mind.  


Ireland’s RTÉ will explore one of the most talked-about murders of recent Irish history in the drama series, The Murder of Mr. Moonlight, which has been pre-bought by the BBC. Malcolm Campbell (What Richard Did) is adapting Catherine Fegan’s book of the same name, with Meadhbh McHugh and Paul Howard also writing. The series focuses on the disappearance and murder of Bobby Ryan, known locally as "Mr. Moonlight," and the events that would lead to one of Ireland’s longest-ever murder trials. Brendan Coyle (Toxic Town) stars as Bobby Ryan, with Owen McDonnell (Killing Eve) as Patrick Quirke, who was ultimately found guilty of the killing and sentenced to life imprisonment.

USA Network's The Rainmaker is kicking off promotions for Season 2 with first-look photos of Merle Dandridge and Richard Kind, both new additions to the legal drama, which will return with new episodes in October. Based on the John Grisham novel of the same name, The Rainmaker follows Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan) who, fresh out of law school, goes head-to-head with courtroom lion Leo Drummond (John Slattery) and his law school girlfriend Sarah Plankmore (Madison Iseman). In Season 2, Rudy, Deck (P.J. Byrne), and Bruiser face old adversaries and new ones in a case where the lives of hundreds of children hang in the balance, and where winning might be just as dangerous as losing. In addition to Dandridge and Kind, Austin Nichols has been announced as joining the cast in Season 2.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO/SHORT FORMS

Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa will star in UnderGround Zero: 9/11 & The Mob, a podcast series recounting the untold story of how the New York Mafia made millions in the aftermath of the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Two more alums from The Sopranos, Ray Abruzzo and Arthur Nascarella, also star. Stephen Kronish (The Kennedys, 24) is the writer of the drama, which is based on real events. It bowed on iHeartPodcasts and audio platforms this weekend. 


On the Poisoned Pen Bookstore podcast, Barbara Peters was in conversation with Jennifer Hillier about her latest psychological thriller, Heart of Glass, in which a woman must confront her traumatic past after a body washes up on the shores of her seaside town and a serial killer recants his long-ago confession regarding a string of murders.


Barbara Peters also spoke with Tess Gerritsen and her publisher and editor, Gracie Doyle, about Gerritsen's latest novel, The Shadow Friends, the third installment in the tight-knit band of former spies known as the Martini Club who investigate when a renowned disease expert and Russian defector dies mysteriously during a global affairs conference in Purity, Maine.


On the Femmes Detectives podcast, host Sue Hinkin spoke with Nichelle Seeley about her book, A Vision of Violence, featuring former cop-turned private investigator Audrey Lake, who reluctantly teams up with the public defenders’ office and gets drawn into a murder case in Oregon.


The Writers Journey interviewed Dervla McTiernan, author of award-winning novels including What Happened to Nina? and The Murder Rule, both New York Times thrillers of the year, about her latest psychological thriller, Three Reasons for Revenge.