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
After years in development, a movie (still untitled) based on the '80s male strip club Chippendales scandal is getting closer to the big-screen treatment, with Craig Gillespie hired to direct and Dev Patel to star. The "American Dream gone wrong story" follows Steve Banerjee (Patel), who emigrated from India to Playa del Rey to chase the dream of fame and fortune, eventually presiding over a flesh empire including male exotic dancers that earned $8 million a year. Banerjee was later charged with plotting to murder former Chippendales dancers and choreographers he saw as business rivals and eventually pleaded guilty to attempted arson, racketeering, and murder for hire.
An inaugural screenwriting lab co-founded by Margot Robbie, designed to help women writers break into the action and franchise film market, has seen a stunning 100% sales return on six original pitches. Each of the six women writers marked their first major sale following the workshop, all in the action or genre arena and all with commitments for distribution. Projects include Sue Chung's Sanctuary, which has been acquired for distribution by Universal, a gritty action thriller with an immigration story at the center; Charmaine DeGraté's Protégé, a lethal spy games ensemble thriller; and Maria Sten's Legacy, a high-concept heist drama set in the criminal underbelly of New Orleans (which is being developed as a TV series).
Mindy Kaling, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Lucy Boynton have been added to the already-strong cast of Lockdown, the Doug Liman-directed heist thriller/romantic comedy scripted by Steven Knight. They join Anne Hathaway, Chewitel Eijofor, Ben Stiller, Stephen Merchant, Dulee Hill, Jazmyn Simons, and Mark Gatiss. Hathaway and Ejiofor play a sparring couple who call a truce to attempt a high-risk, high-stakes jewelry heist at one of the world’s most exclusive department stores, Harrods (and the iconic London landmark even granted its glamorous backdrop to the shoot).
Following stiff situation, The Safran Company and Hera Pictures have won the film and TV rights to a book about a notorious gang of female thieves who plied their trade on the streets of south London. Brian McDonald’s true crime story, Alice Diamond And The Forty Elephants, examines the travails of Alice Diamond’s all-female crime syndicate, based in the Elephant and Castle region of Britain’s capital city in the 1900s.
A trailer was released for I’m Your Woman, starring Rachel Brosnahan as a mom who finds herself on the lam, which will open the virtual AFI Fest October 22. The story follows suburban housewife Jean (Brosnahan) who lives a seemingly easy life, supported by husband Eddie’s (Bill Heck) career as a thief. But when Eddie betrays his partners, Jean and her baby are forced to go on the run, and Eddie’s old friend Cal (Arinzé Kene) is tasked with the job of keeping them safe. After Cal mysteriously disappears, Jean befriends Teri (Marsha Stephanie Blake), and the two women set out on a perilous journey into the heart of Eddie’s criminal underworld.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Tomorrow Studios, the producer behind apocalyptic drama Snowpiercer, is working on a television adaptation of Dean Koontz’s latest thriller novel, Devoted. The book, which was published by Amazon Publishing in March 2020, tells the story of Woody Bookman, a boy who hasn’t spoken a word in his eleven years of life, and who believes a monstrous evil was behind his father’s death and now threatens him and his mother.
NBC has put in development Always Wright, a drama from For Life executive producer Sonay Hoffman and Sony Pictures TV. Written by Hoffman, Always Wright is set in Los Angeles and revolves around a young, wealthy, and jet-setting African-American couple who solve mysteries, run their own successful empires, and are completely head-over-heels in love with each other.
Amazon has ordered an adaptation based on the Italian original, Everybody Loves Diamonds, a heist series with a comedic twist. The project is inspired by the 2003 real-life "Antwerp Diamond Heist," and will follow a team of small-time Italian thieves who manage to deceive top-level security to steal millions of dollars’ worth of precious stones from the Antwerp Diamond Centre. Stefano Bises (Gomorrah), Michele Astori (The Mafia Only Kills In Summer), Giulio Carrieri, and Bernardo Pellegrini are writing the scripts, with Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa producing for Wildside Studios.
After a sojourn in the Pacific Northwest, serial killer Dexter is headed back to Showtime. The premium cable outlet has ordered a 10-episode Dexter limited series that will reunite star Michael C. Hall and original showrunner Clyde Phillips. The show will be a continuation of the original, eight-season series, which ended in 2013 with Hall's Dexter Morgan going on self-imposed exile as a lumberjack and living a solitary life. Production is scheduled to begin early next year for a planned fall 2021 premiere.
NCIS fans can rejoice now that CBS has announced the premiere date for Season 18. The network has slotted the opening episode on Tuesday, Nov. 17, with the milestone 400th episode (which is said to tell the origin story of how Gibbs and Ducky became such great friends and partners) airing not long after the Season 18 premiere.
Showtime is no longer making its drama pilot, The President Is Missing, an adaptation of the novel by President Bill Clinton and James Patterson, from Christopher McQuarrie and Anthony Peckham. The network had ordered the project to pilot, which was fully cast and ready to go when the coronavirus pandemic halted all production in mid-March. In light of the uncertainty surrounding production amid the pandemic, Showtime has opted not to move forward with the pilot.
Spectrum has canceled LA’s Finest after two seasons. A spinoff of the Bad Boys film series, L.A.’s Finest featured Gabrielle Union reprising her role as Syd Burnett from 2003’s Bad Boys II. Now an LAPD detective, Syd is paired with a new partner, Nancy McKenna (Jessica Alba). The show’s second season was originally scheduled to premiere in June, but Spectrum postponed that to September in response to the wave of protests that erupted nationwide in response to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer on Memorial Day.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
Writer Types welcomed three doctor-authors, Dr. Ian K Smith, Dr. Joel Shulkin, and Dr. John Bishop, to talk about their latest novels, and also had a fall book preview featuring recommended books coming out later this year.
My Favorite Detective Stories host, John Hoda, chatted with Stephanie Kane, a lawyer and martial arts enthusiast, about her award-winning crime novels.
The special guest on Suspense Radio was Ruth Ware, the international bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, The Death of Mrs Westaway, and The Turn of the Key.
Kim Johnson stopped by the Crime Writers of Color podcast. Kim is the author of This is My America, her debut novel that explores racial injustice against innocent Black men and the families left behind to pick up the pieces.
The Gay Mystery Podcast welcomed Paris-based Dieter Moitzi, book reviewer and author of two short-story collections, three poetry collections, and two murder mystery novels in French, German, and English, the first of which won the French Gay Crime Fiction Award 2019.
Meet the Thriller Author spoke with Noelle Holten, an award-winning blogger at Crime Book Junkie, a PR & Social Media Manager for Bookouture (a leading digital publisher in the UK), and former Senior Probation Officer for eighteen years. Her debut novel is Dead Inside, the start of a new series featuring DC Maggie Jamieson.
The Tartan Noir Show welcomed Susi Holliday, "The Twisted Sister of the Psychological Thriller."
Wrong Place, Write Crime snagged Eric Van Lustbader to chat about his Nicholas Linnear series (The Ninja, etc.), his many Bourne continuation novels, his new novel, The Nemesis Manifesto (launching a new series), the movie biz, the publishing biz, Japanese wood blocks, graphic novels, and his time in music journalism and working for Elektra Records.
Writers Detective Bureau host, veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson, answered questions about how police would handle a missing persons investigation during a blizzard with a serial killer on the loose; NTSB investigations and the use of Rapid DNA; and conducting sexual assault investigations.
Brian Freeman, a New York Times bestselling author of psychological thrillers including the Jonathan Stride and Frost Easton series, was the latest guest on It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club.
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