George Clooney is adding to the list of potential films he could direct as his next gig, and this one comes with quite the pedigree: he's developing an adaptation of John Grisham's novel Calico Joe.
In a departure from Grisham's usual legal fare, the book, first published in 2012, is about a pitch thrown in 1973 that ends the career of a fictional promising player, sending him into a coma for three decades. The story was inspired by the real-life tragedy of Ray Chapman, a major league player killed by a pitch in 1920, along with Grisham’s personal baseball experience as a teenager when he developed a strong dislike of aggressive pitchers.
Clooney and regular producing partner Grant Heslov are overseeing work on the script, though there's no mention of an actual writer yet. And regardless, it'll be competing for the director's attention with a few other projects, including memoir adaptation The Tender Bar. Clooney's next film to see screens, however, will be _The Midnight Sk_y, due on Netflix in December.