Grisham’s Firm in TV adaptation

John Grisham’s best-selling novel The Firm is to get the TV treatment, after Entertainment One Television (eOne) and Sony Pictures Television (SPT) agree a 22-part adaptation.

The series will be produced by eOne, SPT Networks and Paramount Pictures, and will air on SPT’s AXN networks in more than 125 territories. Casting is underway, with production expected to begin in Canada in July.

Under the coproduction deal, eOne retains basic cable and pay-TV, broadcast TV and digital/DVD rights for the show outside of AXN markets and will distribute the series worldwide, including the US and Canada.

Stateside broadcaster NBC is in negotiations to acquire the series, according to US reports. The project was originally developed at CBS three years ago but has seen a major rewrite since then.

Grisham and Lukas Reiter (Law & Order, Boston Legal, The Practice) are executive producers, along with eOne’s John Morayniss (Haven, Hung), Michael Rosenberg (Hung, Skins) and Noreen Halpern (Rookie Blue, Hung).

The two-hour pilot script for the TV series is set 10 years after the 1993 feature film starring Tom Cruise. The series will reintroduce the young lawyer after several years in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

“We have found our next big tentpole for AXN in The Firm,” said Marie Jacobson, executive VP of programming and production, networks, SPT. “Working with John Grisham and Lukas Reiter to bring John’s best-known work to television is a dream partnership.”

AXN channels air in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Central Europe, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Russia and Spain.