Hollywood loses plot on John Grisham bestsellers

Author John Grisham, left, signs copies of his latest novel "Camino Island". Photo / AP

John Grisham may be the master of the legal thriller, but he also has solid comic timing - as evidenced during a Q&A at Politics and Prose, where he stopped by on his first book tour in more than two decades.

The bookstore's co-owner, Bradley Graham, reeled off the bestselling author's accomplishments. The Firm, which ended up on the New York Times bestseller list for 44 weeks... "45," Grisham interrupted with a deadpan expression. The several hundred in the sold-out crowd waiting in line for Grisham to sign copies of his newest mystery, Camino Island, burst into laughter.

"I stand corrected, your honour," Graham joked. "Do you want to proofread the rest of this?"

"You're doing great," Grisham assured him.

Even after three dozen novels and 300 million copies sold worldwide, Grisham is self-aware enough to get away with a joke about his ubiquity - as well as bring up part of his career that has slowed down. Specifically: Hollywood stopped turning his books into movies.

"It has been 15 years since there was an adaptation," Grisham said. "And they're all for sale!"

The last Grisham book made into a movie was Runaway Jury in 2003, which starred John Cusack and Dustin Hoffman. Technically, 2004's Christmas With the Kranks was based on his short novel Skipping Christmas, but we assume he's talking about his legal thrillers.

Grisham added that he has four projects under contract (including The Partner and The Litigators) that have been in production for years, which, as he says, means nothing is happening. He would be shocked if anything is filmed by 2018.

There's also a "serious contract" for The Rainmaker to be turned into a TV series, Grisham said, though no concrete news. And the stories from three years ago that Zac Efron would produce and star in an adaptation of The Associate? No update either.

So, what's the deal? Grisham didn't offer any guesses, other than that in recent years, it's nearly impossible to produce any film that's not a superhero franchise. "Hollywood has changed so much in the last 20 years that it's just very difficult," he said. "It's hard to get a movie made."

"You gotta write a comic book," said journalist and author David Grann, also onstage for the Q&A, which was recorded for an episode of Grisham's new podcast.

Grisham acknowledged it's especially confusing considering how well the adaptations of his novels did at the box office. The Firm earned US$158 million, The Pelican Brief US$101m, The Client US$92m and A Time To Kill US$109m.

They slowed down after that but it's still surprising studios wouldn't try to recapture the glory days of the earlier films.