John Grisham has told The Brendan O'Connor Show on RTÉ Radio 1 that fans of his bestseller The Firm should not expect to see his just-published sequel The Exchange as a Tom Cruise-starring blockbuster anytime soon.
Cruise starred as The Firm's hero Mitch McDeere in the 1993 box office hit, with Grisham telling O'Connor that the success of Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick had been "a factor" in him bringing the character back to life in The Exchange.
"I had been thinking about bringing Mitch back for many years, never had a story," Grisham recounted.
"But we were wonderfully surprised when Tom came out with the Top Gun sequel and it was insanely popular. And so in casual conversation with my agent and friends and my wife, we said: 'You know, he is still... he's 30 years older, he still looks like he's 30 years old. So I wonder if Tom would play The Firm again?'
"That's how the conversation got started a year and a half ago. I said, 'Why not! Let's try this'. And by then I had a decent story. It takes a while to get the story straight and once I had a good story, I thought, 'Let's give it a try'."
"Have you sent him the book?" asked O'Connor. "Is there talk of a film?"
"There's no talk," the Arkansas-born author replied.
"The rumour was he had the book or an advance reading copy maybe a month ago. I don't know if he's read the book. I don't get involved in that stuff.
"I hope he read it, I hope he likes it and I hope they do the movie. But if they don't, I won't be surprised.
"It's been fifteen years since I had a feature film made. After all the initial success 30 years ago, I kind of got spoilt with that. But it doesn't happen now, and so I don't worry about it."
"And why is that, do you think?" wondered O'Connor.
"It's hard to explain," answered Grisham. "I'm not sure I can explain it.
"Ten, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, the studios kind of got away from making smart adult dramas. They spend all their money making cartoons and Spider-Man 10. They'd rather do that kind of stuff and make a billion dollars than to make a smaller movie for a reasonable budget. It just doesn't work anymore in Hollywood, the studio system doesn't work the way it used to."
"Again, I'm not out there," Grisham continued. "I have nothing to do with it. I want nothing to do with that.
"I write the books and I sit back and I hope somebody reads one - a producer, a director - and wants to adapt it to a film. And if that happens, great - but it has not been happening for me in the last 15 years."
"I was reading, I think though, that you're kind of having a moment in Hollywood again," O'Connor offered. "You're back in vogue. Is George Clooney adapting one of your books, a baseball book, and there's various TV adaptations being talked about?"
"Yes, George Clooney has signed on. In fact, he's written a screenplay for Calico Joe, a baseball novel," said Grisham.
"We had a conversation about a year ago. He's supposedly working on that. Again, I don't know what's going on. I'm not sure it's going to be filmed anytime soon. But there's always several deals - film deals, TV deals - in the works, just nothing ever happens."
"Again, I'm here on the farm writing novels," Grisham concluded. "I don't hang out with those people. That's not my world - I write the books and I hope somebody else adapts them."
The Exchange is published by Hodder & Stoughton.
The Brendan O'Connor Show, Saturdays and Sundays, RTÉ Radio 1, 11:00am
