Final yr, Deadline reported that Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis was prepping to fill the late legend Angela Lansbury‘s sneakers in a brand new model of “Homicide, She Wrote,” the beloved ’80s and ’90s sequence that noticed thriller novelist Jessica Fletcher (Lansbury) monitoring down murderers (greater than 250 of them, truly) within the sleepy Maine hamlet of Cabot Cove, in addition to in her globe-trotting travels (courtesy of the Common Studios backlot).
On the “Freakier Friday” premiere, Curtis confirmed to Leisure Weekly that the venture continues to be on the way in which, in a dramatic trend: “Oh, it’s…,” employs pregnant pause and dramatic facial expressions, “taking place.”
“We’re a minute away. However, yeah, very excited, very excited. However I’m, , tamping down my enthusiasm till we begin capturing,” she added. “I’ve a pair different issues to hustle after which, then I’ll get to take pleasure in that work.”
This isn’t the primary try at remaking the long-running sequence. Over a decade in the past, a reboot was deliberate with Octavia Spencer, however it didn’t get off the bottom. Lansbury was nonetheless round on the time and was not a fan of the concept. “I believe it’s a mistake to name it ‘Homicide, She Wrote,’” Lansbury informed Selection on the time. “As a result of ‘Homicide, She Wrote’ will all the time be a few Cabot Cove and this glorious little group of people that informed these beautiful tales and loved a bit of that place, and in addition loved Jessica Fletcher, who’s a uncommon and really particular person type of particular person… So I’m sorry that they’ve to make use of the title ‘Homicide, She Wrote,’ although they’ve entry to it and it’s their proper.”
The Honorary Oscar recipient — who starred in classics starting from “Gaslight” to “Magnificence and the Beast” — added that she loved Spencer’s work. “I noticed her in ‘The Assist’ and thought she was completely great, a beautiful actress… So I want her nicely, however I want it wasn’t in ‘Homicide, She Wrote.’”
How she would’ve felt about Curtis taking over a brand new model of the venture is anybody’s guess, as Lansbury died at age 96 in 2022, however the actress does have a really attention-grabbing connection to the unique sequence — and its a connection that shines a light-weight on precisely what made the unique CBS sequence profitable sufficient to run for 12 seasons and 4 follow-up TV motion pictures.
In Season 4, Episode 11, none apart from Janet Leigh visitor stars — as within the Oscar-nominated actress from “Psycho,” “Contact of Evil,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” “The Bare Spur,” and one of many “Little Ladies.” And Leigh, as movie trivia followers and followers of Curtis’s Instagram know, was Curtis’s mom.
Her look, whereas a starry one for the sequence, was removed from the one one in all its sort. The key sauce of “Homicide She Wrote” was its high-powered visitor stars. Everyone who was anyone (and was nonetheless alive) from Hollywood’s Golden Age appeared on the present — oftentimes a number of occasions as a number of characters. You see, again in these days there weren’t keen-eyed “And Simply Like That” viewers mentioning inconsistencies from episode to episode. Separate an actor by a pair seasons, and everybody has forgotten they had been ever there.
Amongst a few of the larger basic names to pop up had been Leslie Nielsen, Cyd Charisse, Dorothy Lamour, Van Johnson, June Allyson, Kathryn Grayson, Jane Greer, Adam West, Rue McClanahan, and Jessica Walter. Then there have been, in fact, the “earlier than they had been well-known” selection, together with Joaquin Phoenix, Megan Mullally, George Clooney, Bryan Cranston, and Courteney Cox.
Leigh solely made the one visitor spot — in an episode that additionally included “The Details of Life” star Charlotte Rae. I made a decision to test it out — actually, there’s by no means a purpose not to activate “Homicide, She Wrote.” It’s not that fashionable. The pacing is a bit slower. However it feels cozy, even with all of the homicide. The whimsy and guaranteed allure of Lansbury is infectious.
And in some way, Curtis looks like a worthy successor. With Lansbury gone — and the potential for her Jessica Fletcher returning completely out of the questions — it’s simple to see why now is likely to be the correct time. Curtis, too, has confirmed herself to be a very good match for the homicide thriller style, together with her glorious efficiency in “Knives Out.”
It’s a disgrace, actually, that we by no means obtained to see how Octavia Spencer’s model might need turned out. There’s in all probability a number of variations on this that might work. However in some way 2025, greater than 2013, looks like a yr desperately in want of consolation present. There’s something so terribly alluring a few procedural with an unlikely protagonist within the vein of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple (which Lansbury, coincidentally, additionally performed on display screen).
Simply image it: Curtis dawns a pair of spectacles, takes out a typewriter — which I’m assuming her character clings to for aesthetic inspiration — and faucets out a novel primarily based across the crime she solved earlier that day, between tea time and a droll feast. It’s the type of sequence the BBC pumps out in batches. Our 40-year-old American equal largely holds up — why not give it one other spin?
The Janet Leigh episode, cleverly titled “Doom With a View,” finds Jessica visiting an upscale New York Metropolis resort the place — get this — a homicide occurs. What?! Shock, shock! It comprises Jessica quips like — in response to a personality saying “If she’s insane, then I’m too” — “That’s exactly what the Bordens stated about their daughter Lizzie.”
After which… get this… with no safety element or police backup, Jessica simply confronts the killer on the finish all kindly and posh mainly saying, “You probably did it. Now fess up.” Then explains intimately to him how he did it, whereas he simply breathes barely heavier and listens. In some episodes she does this identical factor whereas the killer has her at gunpoint. The lady has all the nippiness.
Now inform me this isn’t Jamie Lee Curtis. We want it.
And with a pleasant peppering of a few of our most interesting acquainted faces — notably these from 70’s, 80’s, 90’s… our most up-to-date Golden-ish Age — it will probably’t probably fail.
