Monday greetings! Here's the latest wrap-up of crime drama news from stage and screen:
MOVIES
In a bid to be considered for the Oscar chase, Ben Affleck's latest directorial outing, Live by Night, will hit select theaters on Christmas Day before opening wide on Jan. 13. Based on Dennis Lehane's novel, the project stars Afflect, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana and Chris Cooper in the period piece that features the son of a Boston police captain who moves to Florida and becomes an infamous gangster.
Warner Bros Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures have set an opening date for the female-driven caper spinoff of Ocean’s Eleven, titled Ocean’s 8, on June 8, 2018. The all-star lineup includes Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Awkwafina, and Sarah Paulson.
EuropaCorp has set an April 28 release date for the thriller The Circle, starring Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, and John Boyega. Based on the international best-seller by Dave Eggers, the story centers around the founder of the world’s largest tech and social media company (Hanks) who encourages Watson’s character, who’s rising through the company ranks, to live her life with complete transparency — but no one is really safe when everyone is watching.
A teaser trailer was released for the upcoming John Wick: Chapter Two. The sequel sees the eponymous protagonist being pulled out of retirement yet again and traveling to Rome to help an old friend take control of a "shadowy international assassins' guild." Along with Keanu Reeves, the returning cast includes Bridget Moynahan as Helen Wick, John's deceased wife; Ian McShane as the Continental Hotel owner Winston; and John Leguizamo as car chop-shop mogul Aurelio.
The new trailer for the the Sin City thriller, Sleepless, shows Jamie Foxx trapped between corrupt cops and the mob underground.
TELEVISION
Robin Hood is the latest literary figure to get the small-screen treatment, with CBS ordering the pilot A Burglar's Guide to the City. The project follows a team of modern-day Robin Hoods led by a brilliant architect with a troubled past who use their unique skills to steal from rich criminals and give to those that have been wronged by a corrupt system. Paul Grellong (Scorpion) will write the project, which is based on the book by Geoff Manaugh, with Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek: Discovery) and Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious) serving as executive producers.
In other thief-related TV plot news, NBC has put in development In Defense of Tom Parish, a drama that centers on the titular successful Manhattan defense attorney who was once a high-end art thief. After a stretch in a federal prison where he learned the law, he reinvented himself and quickly rose to the top of his new profession. But he has to deal with a mistrustful family and an overzealous FBI agent who doesn’t believe Tom’s truly changed and … steal the occasional priceless work of art.
ABC has put in development the timely project Protect & Serve, a drama from the team behind Secrets & Lies. Written by Barbie Kligman and her husband, actor Billy Malone (Murder in the First), Protect & Serve is set in the aftermath of a riot in an American city triggered by the shooting of an unarmed man by cops. The police department is dismantled and a newly appointed police chief is tasked with rebuilding from scratch.
A&E is also ripping from the headlines for its new docuseries called Live PD. The project offer viewers an unfettered and unfiltered live access inside the six of the country’s busiest police forces and the communities they patrol. The first season, which will run for eight, two-hour episodes, will show the work of both urban and rural police forces around the country on a typical Friday night via a combination of dash cams, handheld and fixed rig cameras.
In the first broadcast development season since the Pentagon allowed women to serve in front-line U.S. military combat units, ABC is tackling the subject with an untitled ensemble drama. It will center on an elite co-ed special forces team that will be forced to find a way to navigate both the treacherous waters of their external missions and the equally dangerous undercurrents of tensions — romantic and otherwise — within the unit.
NBC has given a put pilot commitment to Flight Risk, a woman-on-the-run thriller drama with comedic elements from Shameless executive producers Krista Vernoff and John Wells. Flight Risk centers on an attorney whose take no mercy approach towards the criminals she prosecutes has earned her the nickname The Shark. But when she loses her temper in a divorce mediation, comically threatens to have her soon-to-be-ex-husband killed, and he turns up dead the next day, she has to go on the run and turn to a criminal she's been prosecuting to help clear her name.
John Noble is returning for the fourth season of the Fox paranormal procedural Sleepy Hollow. Noble will reprise his role as the deceitful Henry Parrish, the son of Tom Mison's Ichabod Crane.
USA Network has set a new premiere date for its thriller drama series Shooter starring Ryan Phillippe. The series, based on Stephen Hunter’s novel Point of Impact and the 2007 Mark Wahlberg film Shooter, is now slated for debut on November 15, two months after its original premiere date was delayed due to sniper attacks on police officers. The cast of the series also includes Omar Epps, Shantel Vansanten, Eddie McClintock and Cynthia Addai-Robinson.
The CBS hit series The Mentalist is getting an adaptation for Russia and Ukraine. The 16-part series will be directed by Alexei Muradov and star Yehezkel Lazarov and Anastasiya Mikulchina and is tentatively scheduled to launch in late 2017. Shooting is to take place in Russia and Ukraine's port city of Odessa, making the project a rare Russian/Ukrainian collaboration since the relations between the two countries have soured over Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in East Ukraine.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
UKTV has commissioned and launched a new six episode crime podcast, A Stab in the Dark, hosted by noted novelist Mark Billingham, whose novels Rush Of Blood and In The Dark are currently being adapted by Matt Charman and Danny Brocklehurst for BBC One.
Suspense Radio's Beyond the Cover podcast featured Matthew Dunn talking about his latest work, The Spy House, the fifth electrifying thriller featuring Will Cochrane.
Just in time for Halloween: "18 Creepy True Crime Podcasts That’ll Keep You Up At Night."
THEATER
Mystery at the Theatre in Village of Schaumburg, Illinois, is presenting Binge, a show that lets you see all 10 episodes of a murder mystery in 100 minutes — including an intermission. It's the 10th Mystery at the Theatre play Rob Pileckis has written since 1997 for the Prairie Center Arts Foundation as a benefit for the Prairie Center for the Arts.