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"Gilligan's Island" was as rigidly formulaic a sitcom as ever existed, and this was very much by design. When Sherwood Schwartz wrote the pilot (in debilitating pain), he envisioned a series that could be enjoyed by all members of the family, provided they weren't too demanding. The continuing misadventures of the S.S. Minnow's seven castaways were mostly centered on getting off that confounded island in the Pacific Ocean, but sometimes Schwartz and his writers zagged, concocting a story that finds Gilligan and the gang facing some unexpected danger.

The most memorable of these episodes often involved dream sequences, a secret weapon for the show that allowed it to break up the tedium of the island-all-the-time setting. Sometimes they'd wind up in the Old West or some other long-ago, far-flung destination. One such instance found the cast traveling to Jolly Old England in the 1800s to try Gilligan for literally monstrous...

Writer-Director Greg Jardin takes the familiar thrills of body swap movies and runs riot in his maddeningly exhilarating debut, “It’s What’s Inside.” Released on Netflix, the film’s abundant number of successful attempts at threading the needle of executing genre tropes culminate in a stylishly smart outing. With slick camerawork, smoothly sharp cuts, and a young cast embracing the opportunity to go bonkers, Jardin has all his cylinders firing simultaneously and seamlessly. The result is a wild ride, a psychological thriller here to swoon the horror aficionados (and others) this Halloween season.

“It’s What’s Inside” opens with the emphatic statement that this is not a movie that is only going to rely on its genre’s tropes. It is going to play with them, and it is going to be clever about it. We are introduced to our protagonist couple. Cyrus (James Morosini) and Shelby (Brittany O’Grady), sweethearts from college,...

This summer the Coen Brothers’ ripoffs have been out in force including the August release of Greedy People and the Apple Original Films streaming attraction The Instigators. You might call these, and many others in recent years, Coens-light. But then again even the Coens themselves, or at least Ethan, has more recently tried to replicate their earlier success in this genre with the forgettable Drive-Away Dolls earlier this year. So all hail director Dito Montiel and screenwriter John Pollono for getting it right and reviving the genre in style with Riff Raff, world premiering today at the Toronto Film Festival.

With an outstanding, perfectly-chosen cast, this hilarious crime comedy hits all the right marks, a combination of No Country For Old Men and Grosse Point Blank, throw in a touch of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, season it with a bit of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,...

[Editor’s note: this list was originally published September 2023, and has since been updated.]

There was a time not too long ago when whodunnits seemed to be a dusty relic of cinema’s past. Mysteries about a cast of colorful characters at the center of a murder case, and the intrepid detective investigating them, were far and few between in movie theaters for what felt like decades, and the rare films to feature those plots seldom attracted much attention. But nowadays, the genre is back, baby.

In 2017, Kenneth Branagh directed and starred as the iconic detective Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express,” based on one of mystery writer Agatha Christie’s most famous novels. It was the first high-profile Christie adaptation to hit theaters in ages, after 1988’s “Appointment with Death.” The movie was highly successful, and Branagh has returned to that Poirot mustache with “Death on the Nile” and “A Haunting in Venice,” the latter of which opened in theaters this month.

Exclusive: Army of the Dead and Cha Cha Real Smooth actor Raúl Castillo has been set as the lead in William Atticus Parker’s third film, The Auction, which we told you about earlier this month.

Today, we can tell you a little more about the suspense science-fiction tale, loosely inspired by Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. The film is set at the Aztec Corp., a company that auctions off ancient antiquities and semi-distinct wild exotic animals. Castillo will portray the newest sales representative, David Valdez, with Ben Vereen appearing as his father and K. Todd Freeman as the head of the corporation.

The previously announced cast also includes Audra McDonald, Mary-Louise Parker, and Richard Kind. Details about their specific roles are not being released yet.

Parker — son of actors Mary-Louise Parker and Billy Crudup — will make his film acting debut in the pic alongside his mom Parker.

10. Knives Out (2019)

The one movie from the 21st century on our list, Knives Out reinvigorated the murder mystery genre with bold choices and subversion of classic tropes. The story begins as a classic closed-circle whodunit when a celebrated author is murdered after his birthday celebration but then throws twist after twist at you, knocking you out.

Watch Knives Out on Netflix and Prime Video.

9. Death on the Nile (1978)

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is among the most famous fictional detectives of all time, and rightfully so. In Death on the Nile, Poirot’s peaceful cruise is shaken up by a murder of a rich newlywed heiress. The case appears obvious but soon, new victims follow, and Poirot must hurry before the ship docks and the suspects disperse.

Watch Death on the Nile on Apple TV and Prime Video.

8. And Then There Were None (1945)

Another Agatha Christie classic, And Then There...

It seems today that all you see is cartoon shows with little continuity.

Nevertheless, Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy, as obscene and silly as it may be, decides to switch up its “canon” every so often. Whether it’s due to the passing of a cast member, attempts at a ratings stunt, or (unintentional) acts of progressiveness for its characters’ development, the Griffin family’s world within Quahog for the past 25 years of airing has only expanded.

Here are some of the most significant canon changes in Family Guy history.

Revival With Yolo Energy

Due to low ratings, Family Guy faced the cancellation gun early into its lifespan. But in its death, the great bird-is-the-word got around via DVD sales and rerun airings on Adult Swim. Thus, in its rebirth on Fox in 2005, the show became cruder, bloodier, and edgier than ever, both in its art style and spirit. The...

The red carpet will soon roll out for the 77th Festival de Cannes. The international film festival, playing out May 14-25, has a distinct American voice this year. “Barbie” filmmaker Greta Gerwig is the first U.S. female director name jury president. Many veteran American helmers are heading to the French Rivera resort town. George Lucas, who turns 80 on May 14, will receive an honorary Palme d’Or. Francis Ford Coppola’s much-anticipated “Megalopolis” is screening in competition, as is Paul Schrader’s “Oh Canada.” Kevin Costner’s new Western “Horizon, An American Saga” will premiere out of competition and Oliver Stone’s “Lula” is part of the special screening showcase.

Fifty years ago, Coppola was the toast of the 27th Cannes Film Festival. His brilliant psychological thriller “The Conversation” starring Gene Hackman won the Palme D’Or and well as a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury. The film would earn three Oscar nominations: picture,...

Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before: Some criminals abduct a rich guy’s child and demand a hefty sum to give the youngster back. The “victim” then proceeds to make life hell for the kidnappers. It’s more or less the plot of The Ransom of Red Chief, arguably O. Henry’s best-known work. And like a lot of people who’ve read this enduring staple of school-reading curricula over the decades, you probably got to the final paragraph (“And as dark as it was,...

Universal has struggled to in recent years to bring back its classic horror franchises like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy, etc., attempts that were perhaps too literal. But thanks to the filmmaking collective known as Radio Silence they have, with Abigail, perhaps stumbled onto a way to keep the party going. In this case it is back to the immortal vampire story to end them all, Dracula, but here the bloodsucking title star is his 12-year-old daughter, not the infamous man himself who is reduced to a mere cameo.

Last year the studio tried a variation on the tale with Renfield, which starred Nicholas Hoult as the sidekick to Nicolas Cage’s campy take on the legend but lost its way. I am happy to report that using a blend of a heist flick married to ghoulish and grand over-the-top supernatural bloodletting does the trick in Abigail, a movie...

Because "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was set in such a politically fraught universe, it was always eager to tackle difficult stories about moral ambiguity. The title space station is located near the planet Bajor, which had been, up until recently, militarily occupied by the Cardassians, a fascistic species devoted to military strength and Bajoran extermination. "Deep Space Nine" takes place right as the Cardassian occupation had ended and witnessed Bajor entering into a long and tricky restoration phase. A lot of "Deep Space Nine" was about the rising corrupt Bajoran theocracy that was elbowing their way into the power vacuum.

Major Kira (Nana Visitor) was the Bajoran first officer on board DS9, and she spent the show learning to live with her military past. During the occupation, Kira took many, many Cardassian lives as a member of the Bajoran Resistance. As one might expect, she was deeply wounded and...

A Murder at the End of the World Review(Photo Credit –IMDb)

A Murder at the End of the World Review: Star Rating:

Cast: Emma Corrin, Harris Dickinson, Brit Marling, Alice Braga, Joan Chen, and Clive Owen.

Creator: Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij

Director: Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij

Streaming On: Hulu

Language: English

Runtime: 7 Episodes, Around 1 hour each

A Murder at the End of the World Review(Photo Credit –IMDb) A Murder at the End of the World Review: What’s It About:

Brit Marling has become one of the most creative and unique creators on television. During the last ten years, we have delivered some of the most fascinating series and films in recent memory. So, it becomes quite a delight to see her coming back with A Murder at the End of the World, a limited series on Hulu, inspired by the works of Agatha Christie and...

If you thought you'd seen the last of Hercule Poirot, think again. Agatha Christie's famous Belgian detective, who has appeared in countless of her mystery novels, returns in "A Haunting in Venice," which is set to premiere on Sept. 15. The movie is based on Christie's 1969 novel "Hallowe'en Party," which revolves around Poirot embroiled in another murder mystery. The original story takes place at a Halloween party, while the upcoming adaptation sees the detective at a séance.

"A Haunting in Venice" coproducer and director Kenneth Branagh is set to reprise his role as Poirot for the third time in the upcoming film. He first made his debut as Poirot in the star-studded 2017 film "Murder on the Orient Express." Five years later, he returned as Poirot in the 2022 movie "Death on the Nile," which also had a stacked cast. The third film in the Branagh trilogy will also feature huge stars...

She’s been nominated for seven BAFTAs (winning one), seven Golden Globes (winning two), a couple of Oscars and an Emmy. She’s worked with armfuls of top directors including Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton and David Cronenberg. And 40 years ago, she created one of sitcom’s best-loved characters as the capricious Queen Elizabeth (Queenie to her pals) in Blackadder.

And now Miranda Richardson has proven herself so good she’s been cast not once but twice in Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, first playing Madame Tracy in series one, and now taking on the tailor-made role of Shax, who becomes Hell’s representative on Earth after Crowley (David Tennant) gets fired.

What better time to revisit some of Miranda Richardson’s most memorable performances, from her impressive film debut in Dance With a Stranger to her more recent appearances in Harry Potter and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None?...

Agatha Christie’s “The Sittaford Mystery” will be adapted as “Charlie Chopra & The Mystery Of Solang Valley” for streamer SonyLIV by renowned Indian filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj.

Set in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh, northern India, the series will follow the journey of Charlie Chopra and her quest to uncover a mystery. Bhardwaj will serve as director and co-producer and co-screenwriter alongside Anjum Rajabali and Jyotsna Hariharan. The cast includes Wamiqa Gabbi, Priyanshu Painyuli, Naseeruddin Shah, Neena Gupta, Ratna Pathak Shah, Gulshan Grover, Lara Dutta, Chandan Roy Sanyal and Paoli Dam.

Vishal Bhardwaj Pictures will produce with Priti Shahani’s Tusk Tale Films in association with Agatha Christie Limited. Bhardwaj’s film franchise based on the works of Christie was announced in 2020.

Bhardwaj is best known internationally for his acclaimed Shakespeare trilogy “Maqbool,” (Macbeth) “Omkara” (Othello) and “Haider” (Hamlet).

James Prichard, Basi Akpabio and Leo Dezoysa will serve as executive producers...

Agatha Christie’s “Murder is Easy” is set to be adapted into a two-part film by BBC One, iPlayer and BritBox International.

Set in the sleepy English village of Wychwood under Ashe in 1954, “Murder is Easy” tells the story of Luke Fitzwilliam who finds himself on the trail of a serial killer after meeting Miss Pinkerton on a train to London. She tells him about a series of deaths that have taken place in her village – locals think they are all accidental but Miss Pinkerton knows the truth. When she later turns up dead herself – while on the way to visit Scotland Yard – Fitzwilliam realizes he needs to find the killer before yet more bodies start piling up.

ITV Studios-owned Mammoth Screen (“The Serpent”) and Agatha Christie Limited (“And Then There Were None”) will produce the feature, which is set to go into production this summer.

Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre...

The BBC has unveiled a two-part adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy, produced by ITV Studios’ Mammoth Screen (The Serpent, World on Fire) and Agatha Christie Ltd. (And Then There Were None, Death on the Nile) for the BBC One network and the BBC’s video-on-demand service iPlayer in a co-commission with streamer BritBox International.

The thriller, which will get two hour-long episodes, will film this summer and be adapted by screenwriter Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre and directed by Meenu Gaur (Zinda Bhaag, World on Fire). Casting details will be announced later.

The story is set in 1954. “On a train to London, a man going by the name of Luke Fitzwilliam meets Miss Pinkerton, who tells him that a killer is on the loose in the sleepy English village of Wychwood under Ashe,” according to a plot description. “The villagers believe the deaths are mere accidents, but Miss Pinkerton...

The BBC has unveiled its first Agatha Christie adaptation in the post-Sarah Phelps era.

Playwright Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre is penning Murder is Easy for BBC One and BritBox International following a quintet of Phelps-written Christie reworks over the past decade: And Then There Were None, The Witness For The Prosecution, Ordeal By Innocence and The ABC Murders, which have starred the likes of John Malkovich.

Produced by ITV Studios-backed Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Limited and directed by Meenu Gaur (Zinda Bhaag, World on Fire), the two-parter follows a man who, on a train to London, meets a woman who tells him that a killer is on the loose in the sleepy English village of Wychwood under Ashe.

The villagers believe the deaths are mere accidents, but Miss Pinkerton knows otherwise – and when she’s later found dead on her way to Scotland Yard, Luke feels he must...

This article contains spoilers for You Season 4 Part 1 and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Murder mysteries involving toxic, obscenely wealthy friend groups are all the rage right now. The fourth season of You continues this trend as Joe (Penn Badgley) finds himself enmeshed with a group of London’s insufferable elites who happen to have a mystery killer in their midst. However, Joe Goldberg is no follower. In fact, since Season 1 he’s always been lurking in the gilded shadows, fulfilling our collective desire for deadly schadenfreude involving the uber-wealthy. Given his utter disdain for the one percent, it’s odd that Joe continues to find himself surrounded by trust fund babies, tech billionaires, and Instagram influencers, but it’s always fun to hear his innermost thoughts as he takes clever digs at the excess he sees around him.

This season picks up a few months after the events of the Season 3 finale.

"Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" is set to come out in theaters next week before it makes its way to Netflix in December. It's a mystery murder movie with many delightful layers to it (pun intended), and the film features a star-studded ensemble cast who play a gaggle of characters who reflect the world we live in -- for better or worse.

In the lead-up to the movie's theatrical premiere, I had the chance to talk with writer/director Rian Johnson about how he approached creating the unique suite of characters in "Glass Onion," including how he wove those characters into the film's overall story. We also talked about what whodunit sub-genres he'd love to tackle next, and how a certain cameo came to be. Read on for that discussion!

'I Was Trying To Pick People Who Have Very Different Flavors'

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

It’s been a minute since I was in college. Enough of one I feel the need to add that qualifier while thinking back to the drinking games of yore we used to play: Never Have I Ever; Circle of Death; Flip Cup. In retrospect, these were contests of folly—poor excuses to drink, yes, but also to poke and probe your friends far more than necessary. Truly, one of the festivities was designed to get folks to admit they’re the weirdo who never did that (or maybe the only freak who would). Fortunately, none of these misspent nights ever had a body count… but could you imagine if they did?

Bodies Bodies Bodies director Halina Reijn certainly has. It’s the centerpiece of her elegantly designed and viciously mean-spirited Gen-z satire, which is being released as the latest “A24 horror movie.” It’s impressive the indie tastemaker studio...

A24 has released the first trailer for “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” a new slasher film starring Amandla Stenberg and “Borat 2” breakout Maria Bakalova.

Directed by Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” stars Stenberg as Sophie, a young woman recently out of rehab who hosts a house party and invites her new girlfriend Bee (Bakalova) to meet her extended group of friends. The already tense party takes a turn for the horrifying when the guests play a murder-in-the-dark game that ends with a real-life murder, forcing Sophie, Bee and their friends to investigate who’s responsible.

Stenberg and Bakalova lead the ensemble cast of actors who portray the party guests, which includes Myha’la Herrold (“Industry”), Rachel Sennott (“Shiva Baby”), Chase Sui Wonders (“Generation”), Pete Davidson (“Saturday Night Live”) and Lee Pace (“Foundation”). Reijn, who makes her English language film debut, directs a script written by Sarah DeLappe. The film originated...

Exclusive: The streaming revolution has finally gifted European creatives the opportunity to write sci-fi and other genres, according to Quoc Dang Tran, the creator of Disney+’s first French-language drama Parallèles.

Speaking exclusively to Deadline on the eve of the teen drama’s launch, Netflix’s Marianne creator said he came up with the idea more than a decade ago but there had been “no outlet for sci-fi” and other genres in non-English-language territories.

“Writers like me felt that we had the ability to tell these stories but weren’t allowed to do so,” he said. “For a while if it was fiction it had to be British or American. Some gave up the dream and others persisted.”

Reflecting on the current state of play, Dang Tran credited the streamers with “creating an electric shock” in the content market.

Disney+ alone is creating around one-third of its 60 planned non-u.S.

In “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” a group of rich kids — five old friends, along with a couple of not-so-significant others — gather for a hurricane party at the pastoral suburban mansion of one of their parents. What’s a hurricane party? A storm has been predicted, and they’re using that as an excuse to barricade themselves inside, so that they can dance to TikTok videos and toot cocaine and play games, including one that describes their more-or-less constant state of being: reading each other, one-upping each other, challenging each other like claw-baring rivals on a reality show. This, according to the film’s satirical vision, is what friendship has come to in the age of social-media backbiting.

The director, Halina Reijn, works in what you might call the in-your-face school of twentysomething head-game melodrama. As soon as Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and her new squeeze show up to find the others lounging in the pool,...

New York Times bestselling thriller author Peter Swanson is continually praised for his encyclopedic knowledge of mysteries and his virtuosic execution of the craft. He playfully ups the ante with a different homage in each new release, exploring a different element of the genre's world. In his New York Times bestseller "Eight Perfect Murders," he pays tribute to literary legends Agatha Christie, Patricia Highsmith, Ira Levin, and more, diving deep into their tropes to come up for air with something fully new and enthralling. In his forthcoming thriller published by HarperCollins Publishers's imprint William Morrow, "Nine Lives" ($22), he turns his lens to Christie's "And Then There Were None" to produce an entirely fresh, riveting, and obsession-worthy story of nine strangers who receive a cryptic list with their names on it - and then begin to die in highly unusual circumstances. It's perfectly Peter Swanson.

Nine strangers receive a list...

Disney Plus has unveiled the trailer and key art for “Parallels,” its new French Original series which has been described as a fantasy sci-fi series in the vein of “Stranger Things.” All six episodes will launch on March 23 on Disney Plus’ platform worldwide.

“Parallels” tells the story of four friends — Bilal, Romane, Samuel and Victor — whose lives are turned upside down when a mysterious event scatters the group into different timelines. The four teenagers will do all they can to understand what has happened and try to get back to the carefree innocence of their former lives.

The series is headlined by teenagers and features many fresh faces, including Thomas Chomel (“Clem”), Omar Mebrouk, Jules Houplain (“Hpi”), Jade Pedri (“Ils étaient dix”), Naidra Ayadi and Guillaume Labbé. Other cast members include Gil Alma (“César Wagner”), Elise Diamant (“Mensonges”), Dimitri Storoge, Agnès Miguras (“Askip”), Maxime Bergeron, Victoria Eber (“Beyond Appearances”) and Timoté Rigault.

BritBox North America has struck a deal for three Agatha Christie adaptations and is to double its creative and investment output.

Head Emily Powers unveiled the news at this morning’s TCAs, at which point she revealed BritBox is co-producer on ITV’s The Confessions of Frannie Langton and has acquired the same network’s The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe and BBC One’s Martin Freeman-starring The Responder, both of which will be badged BritBox Originals. The BBC Studios/ITV streamer has also ordered a second season of Father Brown spin-off Sister Boniface Mysteries.

The Agatha Christie deal has been struck with Agatha Christie Limited and ITV Studios-backed The Serpent producer Mammoth Screen, and will see the trio of as-yet-unannounced shows produced over the coming years. Endeavor Content will handle international sales outside of the UK, Ireland and the Americas for all three projects.

The adaptations...

It's only fitting that the most revered and celebrated murder mystery writer of an entire generation would have also lived a life as dramatic and hard-to-believe as her own novels. Among other stories like those involving Miss Marple and "And Then There Were None," Agatha Christie is singlehandedly responsible for the famous, beloved character of detective Hercule Poirot and the dozens upon dozens of extravagant crimes he's been called upon to solve. 

Sidney Lumet's 1974 "Murder on the Orient Express" still stands tall as one of the best adaptations of her work and a genre classic in its own...

The post The Christie Affair, Limited Series Based on Agatha Christie's Disappearance, is in the Works at Miramax TV appeared first on /Film.

Exhibition

Trafalgar Releasing are set to adapt London’s V&a museum’s blockbuster Alice in Wonderland exhibition for theatrical release. “Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser,” which explores the cultural impact of Lewis Carroll’s iconic protagonist on figures from Salvador Dali to Tim Burton, is to be made into a “special cinema event,” the museum has revealed, with a U.K. release date set for Oct. 14. International screenings are set to follow.

Dione Orrom and Matt Askem will direct.

“Alice has been an inspiration for generations and is an icon for today,” said Trafalgar Releasing CEO Marc Allenby. “We’re delighted to be partnering with the V&a to bring this ground-breaking exhibition to a global cinema audience.” – K.J. Yossman

Commission

A+E Networks U.K. has commissioned “Lost Relic Hunters,” the sequel to Sky History channel hit “Lost Relics of the Knights Templar,” from Fired Up Films and Krempelwood.

The...

The mysteries of Agatha Christie have enjoyed a resurgence in media in recent years. Murder on the Orient Express hit the big screen a few years back and the sequel Death on the Nile will open at some point, and TV has seen Christie’s stories return with adaptations of And Then There Were None and […]

The post ‘Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?’ Limited Series Will Be Written, Directed, and Executive Produced by Hugh Laurie appeared first on /Film.

Exclusive: Here’s a biggie: House and The Night Manager star Hugh Laurie has signed up to write, direct, and executive produce an adaptation of Agatha Christie novel Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? for BritBox in North America.

The three-part limited series represents the BBC Studios and ITV-owned streamer’s biggest U.S. commission to date, and the project will be housed at Mammoth Screen, the Christie specialist behind recent adaptations of And Then There Were None and The ABC Murders, starring John Malkovich.

Laurie has been enamored with Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? since he was a child and the book, first published in 1934, tells the story Bobby Jones and his socialite friend Lady Frances Derwent, who discover a dying man while hunting for a golf ball.

Jones and Derwent turn amateur sleuths as they seek to unravel the mystery of the man, who has the picture of...

Above: 1962 poster for The Human Condition III: A Soldier’s Prayer.The extraordinary German graphic designer Hans Hillmann (1925–2014) should need no introduction to readers of this column: I’ve written about him on a number of occasions and anyone who loves movie poster design should know his name. For a long time, however, it has been hard to find a lot of his work online, certainly not all in one place. For a while I had entertained the idea of trying to collect images of every single movie poster he ever designed and ranking them from best to least-best. But I knew that even if I could gather together his more than 160 posters that I would tie myself in knots trying to put them in any kind of order.Thankfully author and publisher Jens Müller has done half of the work for me. Müller had first met Hillmann when he curated...

Exclusive: The explosion in factual TV drama is set to continue after BBC One commissioned a miniseries on the extraordinary and complex death of British teacher Peter Farquhar.

The British broadcaster has commissioned Banijay-owned Wild Mercury Productions and documentary outfit True Vision Productions to make The Sixth Commandment (working title), with A Very English Scandal and And Then There Were None scribe Sarah Phelps attached to write.

The series tells the story of how 69-year-old Farquhar’s relationship with a charismatic young student, Ben Field, set the stage for one of the most complex and confounding criminal cases in recent English history. Field was found guilty of murdering Farquhar in 2019, four years after gaslighting, drugging, and eventually suffocating the former teacher.

The Sixth Commandment captures the initial seductions, the extreme manipulation, the gripping police investigation, and Field finally being brought to justice after Farquhar’s untimely death. It also focuses...

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Raja Nawathe's Gumnaam (1965) is now showing in the series A Journey into Indian Cinema.In front of a quaint hotel in an undisclosed location, a man gets run over. The mastermind behind the murder hides in shadows and smokes a cigarette before paying off the assassin. Cryptic phone conversations about a will follow before this man, too, is killed. He is shot by a man in a trench coat and a hat. We only see his shadow while a hanging telephone handset gets soaked in blood.Raja Nawathe started out his career in the Hindi film industry by assisting superstar-filmmaker Raj Kapoor and in 1965, he decided to make an unauthorized adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, but with his usual romance melodrama tropes intact. The result was Gumnaam (meaning “anonymous”), produced by Kapoor’s Prithvi Pictures.

‘Everything is the story,’ says screenwriter Sarah Phelps. That’s why the stage directions in her scripts are so finely detailed. ‘The story isn’t just what comes out of people’s mouths, the story is what’s in the room.’

‘How high are the ceilings? Are the windows large or small? What does the air smell of? Is it cold? Is everything always slightly damp? Is there enough food on the table? Is there a fly buzzing somewhere? What can you see out of the window? Can you hear traffic? Can you hear your next-door neighbours? Is there a dog that barks incessantly?’

Without that detail, Phelps tells Den of Geek, she’d just be putting dialogue into a vacuum. Mood, weather, smell, hair, costume… it all forms the fabric of a script. But there’s more. All five of her BBC One Agatha Christie dramas are also connected through symbolic details.

‘You ordinary bitch!’ snarls Sarah Phelps, ‘put your cheap knickers on and get out of my house!’ The interview hasn’t taken a strange turn; she’s laughing down the phone, quoting along with memorable lines from her BBC One Agatha Christie adaptations.

‘Oh, it brings me so much joy. It’s like The Witness for the Prosecution’s Romaine screaming in court ‘You fucking men! You fucking men!’ and then hissing at Mayhew like a cat!’ One of Phelps’ friends downloaded Andrea Riseborough’s hiss in that scene to use as her text message alert. ‘I get such a thrill out of it.’

Phelps’ screenwriting is built on thrill. There’s the all-out thrill of the story she’s telling plus the tiny power-jolts of thrill she injects into dialogue. It’s for us, but also, for her. ‘I’m the audience, me.’ If she’s laughing or crying while writing,...

The Pale Horse is the culmination of a body of work that Sarah Phelps set out to achieve more than five years ago. The British writer has gone from never picking up an Agatha Christie book to completing a quintet of memorable adaptions based on some of the iconic author’s most famous works.

Phelps’ journey began with And Then There Were None in 2015 and continued with The Witness For the Prosecution, Ordeal By Innocence and last year’s The ABC Murders, starring John Malkovich as detective Hercule Poirot. Each provided a distinctive twist on the Christie genre, with Phelps hoping to tease out unwritten meaning from prose that will be familiar to millions of readers.

More from Deadline'The ABC Murders' Writer Sarah Phelps Signs Up For 'A Very English Scandal' Season 2Amazon Studios Wins Rights To Turn QCode Sci-Fi Podcast 'The Left Right Game' Into...

Acorn TV, AMC Network’s British programming focused streamer, is to launch in the U.K. at the end of the month.

Launching on April 29 with dramas such as ITV’s “Foyle’s War” and the BBC’s “Keeping Faith” as well as the British-produced Acorn TV original “Queens of Mystery,” the service will charge £4.99 ($6.20) per month in the U.K. or £49.99 ($62) a year.

Acorn TV claims more than one million paid subscribers in the U.S., where it offers dramas, mysteries and comedies from the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Scandinavia.

Acorn TV is offering a 30-day free trial for a limited time, and will be available on devices such as Roku, Fire TV, Android, Apple mobile and Apple TV, and says it is coming soon to Amazon Channels and Apple TV Channels.

The streamer is pushing into an increasingly competitive U.K. Svod market, which has seen launches by BritBox,...

On the surface, Rufus Sewell’s character Mark Easterbrook in “Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse” has it all — in the most polished TV sense imaginable. It’s 1960s London, and he’s a very successful antiques dealer; he has an endless collection of trendy slim-cut suits; he lives in one of those row houses that make tourists gawp; he’s got a car James Bond would envy and a beautiful wife.

But appearances are deceiving, because he’s falling apart at his impressively tailored seams. Women he’s slept with keep dying, and the police just told him that he’s on some kind of hit list created by a very successful and mysterious and, who knows, maybe supernatural serial killer. On top of that next-level weirdness, his hair is starting to fall out in chunks. Is Mark the “pale horse” referenced in the Book of Revelation — Death, the final horseman of the apocalypse?...

Fantasy Island movie review is here. The American supernatural horror directed, produced, and co-written by Jeff Wadlow is based on ABC's 1977 television series of the same name.

The movie stars Michael Pena, Maggie Q, Lucy Hale, Austin Stowell, Portia Doubleday, Jimmy O. Yang, Ryan Hansen, and Michael Rooker. Fantasy Island has released today - February 14, 2020. Does it raises your hair with that eerie feeling or something else?. Let?s find out in the movie review of Fantasy Island.

Immediate reaction when the end credits roll

Yes things are extremely tepid and unacceptably boring in the movie industry. But what is more frightening is the fact that giants like Sony are backing these fictions like Fantasy Island and releasing on?Valentine??s?Day?to traumatize your weekend by this torturetainment in the name of entertainment.

The Story of Fantasy Island

Mr. Roarke (Michael Pe?a) invites Gwen Olsen (Maggie Q), Melanie Cole...

The old-fashioned murder mystery is back in style, and Hollywood is striking while the iron is hot. 20th Century Studios is developing a remake of acclaimed mystery author Agatha Christie’s classic novel And Then There Were None, and the studio has hired the husband and wife team of Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, the writers of […]

The post ‘And Then There Were None’: New Agatha Christie Remake to Be Written By ‘Seberg’ Writers appeared first on /Film.

Exclusive: Seberg screenwriters and husband-and-wife writing partners Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel have been set by 20th Century Studios to adapt the Agatha Christie classic And Then There Were None. Disney will keep the film in its pre-World War II period in which Christie wrote the novel, but with a fresh take. Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps is producing alongside the Christie Estate.

Christie’s novel tells the story of 10 seemingly disparate individuals invited to an isolated island, with the house guests murdered one by one during the course of their stay. The book has sold more than 100 million copies in eight languages.

I’m told this will be a freestanding project and not a third installment of Christie’s Hercule Poirot mysteries at 20th Century that began with Murder on the Orient Express and continues with Death on the Nile, with Kenneth Branagh again directing and starring.

Shrapnel and Waterhouse...

Hilary Strong, the former CEO of the Agatha Christie literary estate and now CEO of Bob Benton’s Anthology Media Group (previously Bob & Co), is joining forces with a trio of industry veterans to form rights business International Literary Properties.

The London and New York based outfit will acquire and manage the intellectual property in literary estates, as well as living authors, and look to exploit those rights through work including TV, film and theater.

The new business is helmed by CEO Scott Hoffman, a book biz vet, with former Rlj Entertainment CEO Ted Green serving as executive chairman. Strong and Benton will sit on the newly-formed company’s board and will also have principal responsibility for properties in the UK and Europe.

Also joining are Andrew Minkow as CFO and Polly Benton to head up business development.

Strong has credits through her Agatha Christie estate work including Murder On The Orient Express...

There is a lot of water imagery in “Dublin Murders,” from the perpetual Irish rain to shots of the Irish Sea. It’s atmospheric, but it also serves a bigger purpose: a reminder that far off ripples can expand into devastating waves.

Based on the first two novels in Tana French’s bestselling and Edgar Award-winning Dublin Murder Squad series, “In the Woods” and “The Likeness,” “Dublin Murders” is, on the surface, about two homicide detectives, Rob Reilly (Killian Scott) and Cassie Maddox (Sarah Greene), trying to solve the murder of a young girl whose body was found ritually posed at an archaeological dig in the woods. In was in these same woods 20 years earlier where two children disappeared, leaving behind their friend who was found hugging a tree and screaming, wearing ripped clothes and shoes filled with another child’s blood.

There are other complications to this visceral set-up — and in “Dublin Murders,...

Hugh Laurie, best known for his role in the long-running medical drama House, is taking on a classic murder mystery for BBC. He is developing an Agatha Christie novel for TV, only we don’t know which one yet.

Mammoth Screen is producing, which is a great match, as they have brought multiple Christie adaptations to the BBC in the past, most recently And Then There Were None and the upcoming The Pale Horse.

Laurie has not yet confirmed whether or not he will star, but it is a possibility. We will keep you tuned into the news on the project as it becomes available. What’s your favorite Agatha Christie mystery?

Source: Variety...

Hugh Laurie is working on a small-screen Agatha Christie adaptation, Variety has learned. The star of “The Night Manager” and “House” is developing a script, but which of the Queen of Crime’s books he is adapting is being kept strictly under wraps.

The project is through ITV-owned producer Mammoth Screen and is being developed for the BBC. Mammoth has made several successful Christie adaptations for the BBC, which Amazon has taken for the U.S. The latest coming down the pike is “The Pale Horse,” which was adapted by BAFTA-nominated Sarah Phelps, who won acclaim for her earlier TV version of the Christie classic “And Then There Were None.” Endeavor Content has sold those adaptations .

Laurie, who appeared in the P.G. Wodehouse adaptation “Jeeves and Wooster,” has not been confirmed to star. On screen, he parodied one of Christie’s most famous characters, Hercule Poirot, in the Spice Girls film “Spice World.

BBC One is set to premiere its Sarah Phelps-written crime drama Dublin Murders on October 14 at 9Pm.

The eight-episode series has been picked up by Starz in the U.S. and is adapted from Tana French’s first two novels in the Dublin Murder Squad crime series – In The Woods and The Likeness.

The atmospheric, psychological thriller, which was made by Euston Films, Element Pictures and Veritas Entertainment, is adapted by creator and writer Phelps, who has reimagined Agatha Christie stories And Then There Were None and The ABC Murders for the BBC.

Filmed in Belfast and Dublin, Dublin Murders stars Killian Scott (C.B. Strike) and Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful) as detectives dispatched to investigate a child’s murder, who find a community caught between old and new Ireland.

Dublin Murders will also air on Starz in the U.S. and Canada in 2019, as well as on StarzPlay in Germany,...

The BBC has unveiled the first trailer for its reboot of H.G. Wells’ classic War of the Worlds starring The Big Short’s Rafe Spall and Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson.

The pair star in the BBC One series, which is produced by ITV-owned Mammoth Screen, alongside Trainspotting’s Robert Carlyle and Sherlock’s Rupert Graves.

The series, which filmed in Liverpol, was adapted by Wallander’s Peter Harness and directed by Craig Viveiros (And Then There Were None). It airs later this autumn.

Produced by Betsan Morris Evans (The City & The City), the series is the first adaptation set in Edwardian England, rather than America, and follows George, played by Spall, and his partner Amy, played by Tomlinson as they attempt to defy society and start a life together against the escalating terror of an alien invasion. Graves plays George’s older brother Frederick, while Carlyle stars as Ogilvy,...

Richard Dormer will lead the cast of “The Watch,” an upcoming BBC America series based on stories from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Dormer, who played Beric Dondarrion in “Game of Thrones,” will star as Sam Vimes, the captain of a band of misfit cops known as The Watch.

Set in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, where crime is legal, “The Watch” is billed as an anarchic drama. The eight-episode series follows The Watch as the group rises up from decades of helplessness to save their corrupt city from catastrophe. It is based on “City Watch,” a spinoff series within Pratchett’s bestselling “Discworld” novels.

“I’m so thrilled to be part of this brilliant madness and mayhem,” Dormer said. “I was immediately drawn to the multitude of layers to Sam Vimes, and I find the dynamic between him and his band of disenfranchised comrades very compelling.”

Also joining the...

Game of Thrones star Richard Dormer is to lead the cast of BBC America’s The Watch, based on Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

Dormer stars as Sam Vimes, Captain of The Watch, disempowered by a broken society that’s reduced his department’s jurisdiction to almost nothing, in the eight-part series, which is co-produced by BBC Studios and Narrativia, the production company founded by Pratchett in 2012 and now run with Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna and his former business manager Rob Wilkins.

The cast also includes Also joining the cast are Adam Hugill (1917), Jo Eaton-Kent (Don’t Forget The Driver), Marama Corlette (Blood Drive), Lara Rossi (Crossing Lines) and Sam Adewunmi (The Last Tree).

Set in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, where crime has been legalized, The Watch is a “punk rock” drama. The series centers on a group of misfit cops as they rise up from decades of...