It’s a good day for fans of True Detective (and a late ’90s Matthew McConaughey), who will be happy to hear the actor is set to reprise his A Time To Kill role in a new John Grisham adaptation, with HBO confirming a new series is officially in the works, per Variety.
The upcoming project, which is currently in development, is a follow up to Grisham’s books A Time To Kill, first released in 1989, and Sycamore Row, all of which centre on the character of Jake Brigance, with McConaughey having starred as the attorney in the 1996 film.
A Time To Kill, which was a breakout film for the actor, saw his character defend a Black man (played by Samuel L. Jackson), who killed the two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter. The film also saw Sandra Bullock star as McConaughey’s law student, Ellen Roark.
According to Variety, the new series will be based on Grisham’s 2020 novel, A Time For Mercy, which follows Brigance once again as he defends a 16-year-old who killed his mother’s boyfriend, a deputy sheriff, with the boy claiming the man was abusive toward his mother, himself and his little sister.
While McConaughey is yet to announce his return to the role, he did take to Instagram to promote Grisham’s novel when it was released in 2020.
There’s also no word yet on if Bullock would reprise her role in the new 10-episode series.
If the film goes ahead, it would see McConaughey return to HBO, where he starred as Detective Rustin “Rust” Cohle, which landed the actor a Best Actor nod at the Emmy Awards.
Reports claim no writer is yet attached to the project, but Warner Bros. executive Lorenzo di Bonaventura has signed on to executive produce.
Fans of John Grisham novels will know this isn’t his first screen adaptation, with Netflix having pegged the American novelist for their docuseries, The Innocent Man.
The six-part series focused on two murders that rocked the small town of Ada, Oklahoma in the 1980s, and the controversial events that followed which, are also the subject of Grisham’s best-selling book: The Innocent Man: Murder And Injustice In A Small Town.
