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, really) 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 undertaking remains to be on the way in which, in a dramatic style: “Oh, it’s…,” employs pregnant pause and dramatic facial expressions, “occurring.”
“We’re a minute away. However, yeah, very excited, very excited. However I’m, you already know, tamping down my enthusiasm till we begin taking pictures,” she added. “I’ve a pair different issues to hustle after which, then I’ll get to get pleasure from 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 at all times be a few Cabot Cove and this glorious little group of people that informed these pretty tales and loved a chunk of that place, and in addition loved Jessica Fletcher, who’s a uncommon and really particular person form of particular person… So I’m sorry that they’ve to make use of the title ‘Homicide, She Wrote,’ despite the fact that 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 stunning actress… So I want her properly, 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 undertaking 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 films.
In Season 4, Episode 11, none aside 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 among its type. The key sauce of “Homicide She Wrote” was its high-powered visitor stars. All people who was anyone (and was nonetheless alive) from Hollywood’s Golden Age appeared on the present — oftentimes a number of instances 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 have been ever there.
Amongst a few of the larger basic names to pop up have 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, after all, the “earlier than they have 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 — truthfully, there’s by no means a motive not to activate “Homicide, She Wrote.” It isn’t that trendy. The pacing is a little bit slower. But it surely 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 straightforward to see why now is perhaps the fitting time. Curtis, too, has confirmed herself to be an excellent match for the homicide thriller style, along with her glorious efficiency in “Knives Out.”
It’s a disgrace, truthfully, that we by no means received to see how Octavia Spencer’s model may 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 form 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 incorporates 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 woman has all the coolness.
Now inform me this isn’t Jamie Lee Curtis. We want it.
And with a pleasant peppering of a few of our best acquainted faces — significantly these from 70’s, 80’s, 90’s… our most up-to-date Golden-ish Age — it might’t presumably fail.