Well I Lost the Rights to that John Grisham Book

Actually I never HAD the rights, but I was hoping. I thought interest in adaptating John Grisham books had died down. His last book that was adapted for the screen was 2004’s comedy, Christmas with the Kranks. Yeah I hardly heard of it too.

I’ve been a John Grisham fan like forever and as I have read more books penned by him I guess you can call him my favorite author. When I read his newest book and it had a black protagonist (a first as far as I know) I thought it would be really cool if a long time fan would be able to adapt this book…in five years or so. Well time waits for no man and neither did this book. LOL.

The book I speak of is his 2012 book The Racketeer. According to this morning’s The Hollywood Reporter,

Daniel Espinosa, who helmed Universal's hit "Safe House," is developing the adaptation as a directing vehicle. 

Fox 2000 and New Regency are teaming up to adapt The Racketeer, the latest novel from John Grisham. 

Double Feature Films, the shingle run by Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher, is on board to produce the adaptation, which also has Daniel Espinosa developing the project as a directing vehicle. Espinosa will exec produce with his manager and producing partner Shelley Browning.

Racketeer sees a federal judge murdered at a lakeside cabin and the contents of his safe emptied. The only man who knows the whos and whys is a former attorney serving time in federal prison who hopes to parlay that into getting revenge on the people who put him there. 

The book hit shelves in October with an initial printing of 1.5 million copies. It hit No. 1 on both The New York Times and USA Today best-seller charts and has been on the lists since its release.

Now just because they own the rights as of now still does not mean that the film would get made. Sometimes these things wind up in “development hell” and the owner relinquishes the right to the book because they can't quite get the movie made. Here’s hoping.

Related
My review of The Racketeer