Considering the brace of them we saw in the 1990s, it’s sort of remarkable how long its been since we’ve seen a John Grisham adaptation. Between 1993’s “The Firm” and 2004’s “Christmas With The Kranks” (yes, bizarrely, that was from a Grisham novel, too), eleven adaptations of the lawyer-turned novelist’s work hit the big screen, sometimes to decent effect (“The Firm,” “Runaway Jury”), sometimes… not (“The Chamber”).
In fact, none of Grisham’s last fifteen books have reached the big screen, after the author became fed up with a lack of creative involvement, although a few of his works are being developed: “The Testament” was sold last year, while George Clooney held the rights to the true crime saga “An Innocent Man,” which David Gordon Green was briefly going to direct. But it looks like the famine of middlebrow, not-particularly-thrilling legal thrillers is coming to an end, as the LA Times are reporting that Paramount are talking to Tony Scott about helming an adaptation of Grisham’s most recent book, “The Associate.”
The book, which follows an idealistic law student who is blackmailed into taking a job at a law firm, and passes the details of the case onto the opposition, has had Shia LaBeouf attached to the lead for a few years, and a script from William Monahan (“The Departed”), and now Scott may complete the puzzle.
Deadline, however, suggest that it may not be so simple, as the project is one of three being mulled over by the director, including the gangster thriller “Potzdamer Platz,” with Mickey Rourke, Javier Bardem, Christopher Walken and Johnny Hallyday, which was previously reported as being ready to film in January, and “Hell’s Angels,” also talked about earlier this year, which would potentially team Rourke and LaBeouf, about focus on a cop who infiltrates the legendary biker gang.
All three sound rather more serious than the sort of thing that Scott’s been tackling lately, and the latter two are certainly more promising than the likes of “Domino” or the upcoming runaway train movie “Unstoppable.” But having said that, he could use a runaway hit, and the Grisham seems like the most obvious contender for that. To be honest, we don’t really care until they release the Grisham adaptation that we really want to see: Casey Affleck’s adaptation of Kevin Grisham’s “The Rural Juror”…