OK, Happy New Year. We’ve already documented what writer/director Scott Frank, the creator of the acclaimed series “Godless” and “The Queen’s Gambit” is not doing—at least not currently; Netflix passed on three of his projects, including a film with ‘Queen’s Gambit’ star Anya Taylor Joy—not let’s discuss what he is doing.
Well, first, Frank has a new series on the way, “Monsieur Spade” starring Clive Owen, and it will begin airing on AMC in January (and yes, (it’s on our 2024 Most Anticipated TV Preview list). But he has other things cooking for one, an opera based on the music of The Killers, according to a new New Yorker profile.
According to the magazine, the “concept was for Frank to stitch songs by the band into a fictional Cain-and-Abel story about the founding of a Las Vegas-like city, called ‘Dustland’: a film with musical numbers.”
“I’m trying to do something based on Brecht’s ‘City of Mahagonny,’” he told the New Yorker. “I’m listening to the Killers’ songs over and over. But the bastards just released a new album, so now I’ll have to reconfigure it.”
Frank has apparently been workshopping it with The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers and Thomas Kail, the director of “Hamilton.”
So that’s definitely different and a newfound creative endeavor for Frank. The New Yorker profile also says his next project is one that Netflix picked up. It’s called “Department Q,” a series based on crime novels by the Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen which was already made into a Danish trilogy in 2016 by filmmakers Mikkel Norgaard and Hans Petter Moland starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares.
Obviously, Frank will do his own thing, but the synopsis does reveal details as it’s a crime series about detectives reviewing cold cases, and then they uncover something very big and conspiratorial.
Department Q series introduces maverick detective Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), who, after majorly botching an assignment, is relegated to reviewing cold cases. With his new partner, Assad (Fares Fares) and secretary Rose (Johanne Louise Schmidt), the moody Mørck digs into shocking unsolved mysteries, including the kidnapping of a high-ranking government official, a brutal prep school murder, and a bloody message from two children presumed dead. A nonstop series of ingenious twists and shocking surprises keep the suspense simmering in these three stylish thrillers: The Keeper of Lost Causes, The Absent One, and A Conspiracy of Faith.
Apparently, Scott is going to be in Scotland soon shooting the series, so perhaps casting details will surface soon. That is not all; he’s writing a sequel to his novel “Shaker” called “Faker,” which is centered on a crooked Hollywood money manager. From there, he has secured the rights to Dashiell Hammett’s “Red Harvest” detective, and he and writer Megan Abbott, who wrote his “Laughter in the Dark,” movie with Taylor-Joy that Netflix turned down, will adapt a script for A24.
Here’s the book synopsis for that, in case you’re curious.
Detective-story master Dashiell Hammett gives us yet another unforgettable read in Red Harvest: When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty–even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.
Frank obviously has a done going on. Let’s hope all these projects, plus the three aforementioned projects Netflix turned down, get eventually made. Check out the “Department Q” trilogy trailer below.