His best-selling books have become big movies, but on TV, John Grisham's largely legal-powered stories haven't always fared so well (the TV version of The Firm, for example, lasted all of one season). A connected pair of series, one based on The Rainmaker and one from Rogue Lawyer is looking to change his fortunes and tinker with the telly format as a whole.
Streaming service Hulu has Michael Seitzman and Jason Richman developing and producing the two shows, which will be able to watch independently, but will be set in the same storyline and crossover from time to time. Characters will transfer between series, while others will simply exist in their own shows. It's the sort of thing that DC and WBTV have tried to some extent with their superhero universe and that other network outlets dabble in with the various procedurals (the Chicago shows or Grey's Anatomy/Station 19), but those latter examples are mostly spin-offs and this is an attempt to build a shared small screen universe from the off.
The Rainmaker, of course, was famously adapted into the film starring Matt Damon and Danny DeVito, chronicling an underdog lawyer's battle against a big insurance firm, but Rogue Lawyer has only so far sat in the development trays at studios. The book follows charming lawyer type Sebastian Rudd, as he defends the seemingly un-defendable, going to great lengths to ensure that his clients get a fair trial, even if he has to cheat to make sure it happens.
The whole endeavour is currently called The Grisham Universe, but we'll have to wait and see if it works out. And given their placement on Hulu, it's anyone's guess as to when or where the shows might appear in the UK.
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