The Firm Looks to Bring Thrills to Legal Drama Genre

CANNES: The new television adaptation of John Grisham’s The Firm will be much more than a standard legal drama, its executive producer, Lukas Reiter, tells World Screen Newsflash: "You get that action component but you also get a family drama at the center of it."

The show, slated to air on NBC in the U.S., Global in Canada and AXN networks worldwide, is being launched to international broadcasters by Entertainment One Television in Cannes this week.

"If you love legal dramas, you’re going to love The Firm," says Reiter on the series, which picks up ten years after the novel (and feature film with Tom Cruise) left off. Mitch McDeere and his family are now out of witness protection and looking to move on with their lives. Grisham has been actively involved in the television adaptation, working closely with Reiter—a former prosecutor—to map out the 22-episode season.

"All that people love about what [Grisham] does so well is very much in the DNA of the show," Reiter says. "It is a legal drama but it’s also a legal thriller."

He continues, "It’s a hybrid in terms of the structure of the show. There are standalone legal cases that will start and end every week, that will have a dramatically satisfying conclusion. For those people who are staying with the show—and it is The Firm, [so] there is a certain expectation—there is an ongoing conspiracy at the heart of the season that John and I are developing that will unspool as Mitch slowly starts to learn the truth about a case he gets involved in."