When you think John Grisham, you usually think of legal thrillers, right? Well, that and the term 'airplane reading', but you probably don't think pastoral sports stories (I know I don't). The Hollywood Reporter announced that Phoenix Pictures has purchased the rights to Grisham's 2007 novel, Playing for Pizza, and the company is already on the hunt for a writer and director for the sports dramedy.Pizza centers on a third string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns named Rick Docker. After blowing his team's championship shot, Rick is dropped from the team and blacklisted from the NFL. Luckily for him, his enterprising agent finds him a spot in the Italian football league playing for the Parma Panthers. From then on the story is probably a compendium of 'fish out of water jokes', and general cultural misunderstanding -- I'm thinking something along the lines of Under the Tuscan Sun, but with a lot more tackling.
I can't help but remembering back to the 90's when it seemed like you couldn't turn around without seeing another one of Grisham's legal dramas go into production. But, as audiences (and the quality of the movies) sagged, it seemed like his moment in the sun had passed. Now that George Clooney's Smokehouse has picked up the screen rights to Grisham's non-fiction novel, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town with David Gordon Green set to direct, there may just be a second chance for Grisham on the big screen after all -- although it's going to be awfully tough to live down the reputation of being the man responsible for Christmas with The Kranks.
1. Christmas with the Kranks was another example of a studio totally screwing up a great book. They changed a number of very important parts. So much so, it lost a great deal of the story. I loved Playing for Pizza, and pray that the studio doesn't decide with the new found interest in Soccer and David Beckham in Los Angeles, it doesn't become Playing for Brie and Goat Cheese salad.
Posted at 3:07PM on Jul 11th 2008 by Rich