legal thriller Tagged Articles at Cinematical

After resisting overtures for a decade, a best-selling author received an offer he couldn't refuse. John Grisham has finally allowed his 1999 novel The Testament to be optioned, according to Variety. Grisham will have "the right to provide creative input, which he didn't always have in the past -- one of the factors that pushed him away from Hollywood until about three years ago, when his fans prodded him to end his self-imposed movie moratorium."

The Testament revolves around a self-made billionaire who leaves his entire fortune to his illegitimate daughter, a young woman who lives and works "with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil." An attorney who's seen better days helps her battle the billionaire's relatives for the fortune. Producer Mark Johnson says: "It had the best of the courthouse stuff that John writes so well, plus this exotic adventure in deepest Brazil."

It's been six years since Runaway Jury hit the screens, so is the time right for more big-screen Grisham? I jumped off the Grisham bandwagon after The King of Torts, which had a smug, off-putting, moralistic tone; his formula -- idealistic young hero / heroine fights the corrupt system -- felt stale and predictable. If nothing else, Grisham's books offer the comfort of familiarity. Legal thrillers, the more formulaic the better, are a Hollywood staple, and usually attract a dependable audience. Shia LaBeouf is attached to The Associate, his latest best-seller, and others are in development. Will Grisham's creative input on The Testament result in a better movie?

The first time I watched Open Water, I had nightmares for a week. Mainly because, when I'm on vacation, the wife and I are those two people who go on the same type of diving excursions. Plus, I never like to stay with the crowd -- I always venture off to find my own space, away from all the awkward vacationers and their seven disposable, underwater cameras. So when I saw the flick, I said to myself: "Crap, that could most definitely be me in another year." Heck, I'm all for swimming with sharks, but there needs to be a boat around in case, ya know, them sharks want to eat me. It's been four years since director Chris Kentis and producer Laura Lau scared the crap out of us with Open Water, and according to Variety, the two have finally decided on their follow-up project. Yup, and it once again has to do with sharks -- but not the kind that takes your limbs, I'm talking the kind that takes your money.

Kentis wrote and will direct the currently untitled legal thriller for Paramount Vantage, with Lau back onboard as producer. The story sounds pretty intriguing; essentially, it revolves around a woman who is arrested for a crime she didn't commit, but then gets "plunged into a state of confusion and psychological terror as she defends herself." See, defending yourself is always a bad move -- but if you don't got the cash, I guess it's the way to go. Apart from this, Kentis will also helm (while Lau produces) a project for Warner Bros. based on the WWII sinking of the USS Indianapolis. If you weren't previously aware of this story, you might have learned more about it recently during the Discovery Channel's very awesome Shark Week. I know they aired a two-hour docudrama about the incident, in which a crew of 900 were left stranded in the water for five days with a slew of blood-thirsty sharks. Variety says the legal thriller is eying a 2008 start, and there's currently no word on when Warners plans to kickoff the USS Indianapolis flick.