John Grisham's 'The Innocent Man' Gets Director

One of my favorite living directors, David Gordon Green, is in final negotiations to direct the adaptation of John Grisham's The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, which we told you about in December when it was set up with George Clooney's and Grant Heslov's production company. The film will be distributed by Warner Independent Pictures, which also announced it had picked up distribution duties for Green's latest, Snow Angels. That film will be released sometime next year (why must they wait so long?), while The Innocent Man may take awhile to begin. Green just started filming the stoner comedy The Pineapple Express (Seth Rogen and James Franco reunited!) and he has also written an adaptation of Brad Land's memoir Goat, which is in the pre-production stage, so it isn't clear where Green will fit the Grisham project in.

It is interesting to see such an amazing writer as is Green tackle more projects that aren't original concepts, especially since I haven't yet seen his first adapted work (Snow Angels). Our own James Rocchi wrote of Snow Angels that, "It's still a film that's identifiably his, even as it has the potential to turn him from a lesser-known indie director into an A-level dramatist." That is reassuring enough for me. I do have worries that Green will be too limited to confined spaces like prison cells and courtrooms with the Grisham, but I'm just being a brat because I love his outdoor cinematography so much. Additionally I continue to be saddened every time I hear of another project Green becomes attached to that isn't A Confederacy of Dunces.