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

Robert De Niro, Colson Baker, and John Malkovich are set to star in the action thriller, Wash Me In The River, which hopes to begin production in November. Randall Emmett is directing and producing the film that tells the story of an opioid addict out for revenge against the dealers who sold him drugs that caused the death of his fiancée—all while two cops are hot on his tail. Additional casting is underway, including rapper Quavo (of the group Migos), who is also in talks to join the cast.

Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman and Batwoman star Ruby Rose are leading the cast in George Gallo’s action-thriller, Vanquish, which is currently filming on location in Biloxi, Mississippi. Freeman plays a retired police commissioner who blackmails his caretaker (Rose) by kidnapping her daughter, forcing her into helping him double cross his team of dirty detectives in an attempt to clean up the city.

Donnie Yen is set to star in the action thriller, The Father, alongside Alec Baldwin and Frank Grillo. Tommy Wirkola (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters) will direct the film from a script by P. G. Cuschieri that’s described as "a fast-paced ode to ’80s action movies." Set against the Irish-American gangland of South Boston, the project charts the struggle of middle-class Hong Kong immigrant, John Chung (Yen), making the best of his family’s new American life while working as a modest fish broker in the city’s docklands. When his wayward teenage boys stumble upon four kilos of heroin, they’re hunted by a local crime ring and a group of corrupt cops. Forced to revive his past to protect his kin, John will stop at nothing until they are safe from harm.

Noomi Rapace (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Aksel Hennie (The Martian) have been set to co-star in director Tommy Wirkola’s Norwegian-language thriller, The Trip. The story follows a dysfunctional husband (Hennie) and wife (Rapace) who head to a remote lakeside cabin under the guise of reconnecting, but each has secret designs to kill the other. Before they can carry out their respective plans, unexpected visitors arrive and the couple is faced with a greater danger than anything they could have plotted.

Colson Baker (The Dirt) and Travis Fimmel (Vikings) are set to topline the action-thriller, One Way, which will be directed by Andrew Baird from a script by Ben Conway. One Way will follow Freddy (Baker) who goes on the run with a bag full of cash and cocaine after a robbery of his former crime boss goes wrong. Suffering a potentially fatal wound, he slips onto a bus headed into the unrelenting California desert. With his boss and her henchmen hot on his heels and his life slipping through his fingers, he is left with very few choices.

Harry Styles has landed a lead role in the New Line thriller, Don’t Worry Darling, the next directing outing for Olivia Wilde. Styles replaces Shia LaBeouf, who had to depart the project due to a scheduling conflict. Styles joins Florence Pugh and Chris Pine in the cast, both of whom signed on earlier this year. Although little is known about the movie’s plot, Don’t Worry, Darling is set in an isolated, utopian community in the 1950s California desert. Katie Silberman wrote the screenplay based on a spec script by Shane and Carey Van Dyke.

TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES

Amazon Prime Video is developing a scripted series starring Nicolas Cage as the infamous Joe Exotic, made a household name by the hugely popular Netflix docuseries, Tiger King. The project, which had been in the works at CBS TV Studios, is based on the Texas Monthly article "Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild," by Leif Reigstad. Now in prison after being sentenced to 22 years for his role in a murder-for-hire plot, Joe Exotic continues to make headlines.

Singer-songwriter, Halsey, will co-star opposite Sydney Sweeney in The Player’s Table, a TV series based on Jessica Goodman’s bestselling debut novel, They Wish They Were Us. The project is a taut murder mystery set against the backdrop of an exclusive prep school on Long Island.

Actors Gary LeRoi Gray and Dawn Richard have joined the cast of the limited series, Trace, for the new streaming service, VIM2Tv. The crime thriller is written by Anthony Bawn and based on the unsolved murders of a serial killer, The Doodler, in 1970's San Francisco.

Caleb Castille, who recurred as the character Devin Rountree in last season's NCIS: Los Angeles, has been promoted to series regular for Season 12 of the CBS series. After Castille’s Devin Rountree appears on the radar of NCIS’s Office of Special Operations, Agents G. Callen (Chris O’Donnell) and Sam Hanna (LL Cool J) decide that he be may a fit for their tight-knit group.

A trailer was released for Rebecca, Ben Wheatley’s Netflix update on the 1938 Daphne Du Maurier novel first adapted by Alfred Hitchcock, which stars Armie Hammer, Lily James, and Kristin Scott Thomas.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Karin Slaighter joined WAMC's The Hudson River Sampler podcast to chat about her latest thriller, The Silent Wife.

A new Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast is up featuring the mystery short story, "The Glass Slip Up," written by Chelle Martin and read by Sean Hopper.

Rhonda Evans and Frank Collerius, hosts of the New York Public LIbrary's podcast, The Librarian Is In, featured "a deep dive" into Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone were joined by John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker series, chatting about his worst book events, his views on selfies, and how he met Stephen King.

Read or Dead talked about mysteries featuring technology and social media, along with some mixed feelings about adaptation news recently announced.

Meet the Thriller Author spoke with Thomas O’Callaghan, author of the series featuring NYPD Homicide Commander Lieutenant John W. Driscoll.

Oilvier Bosman was the special guest on The Gay Mystery Podcast, talking about his play, Death Takes a Lover, which was subsequently turned into the first D.S.Billings Victorian Mystery.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed August Norman to discuss Sins of the Mother, the second installment in the Caitlin Bergman mystery series.

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