Clooney snaps up Grisham thriller

You’re a Hollywood star and you haven’t had a hit in a while. The scripts are drying up and your agent is taking far too long to return your calls. It’s a slippery slope.

The polar opposite of that scenario can be summed up in two, simple words. George Clooney. Respected, adored and he must know that virtually every actor he meets, big cheese or little fish, is angling to get a part in the next indie-goes-huge project on the Smoke House Productions roster.

Well heads up, Hollywood. Clooney and his Smoke House partner Grant Heslov have hoovered up the rights to John Grisham’s latest non-fiction page-turner The Innocent Man: Murder And Injustice In A Small Town.

The true tale of Ron Williamson, a man sent to death row for eleven years for a murder he did not commit, will see Clooney and Heslov holding the purse strings as producers. There is no word yet on whether either will star or direct.