Imagining a Proper John Grisham Universe

The Grishamverse project at Hulu faltered, but let’s imagine the ultimate legal thriller crossover event

I’m unashamed to be a John Grisham fanatic.

While his work has been derided as “legal thrillers [that] are no more mentally taxing — or unpredictable — than fairy tales,” I enjoy them. Well, most of them. Some are quite bad, but there are a few that are actually very good. Most fall somewhere between the two. I usually read biographies and other works of nonfiction, but Grisham is like a reading vacation for me. I don’t have to read with a pen in my hand or work to untangle the density of the prose, and I love his pacing. Also, I listen to his audiobooks as background noise while working or doing things around the house.

As not only a Grisham superfan, but also the internet’s expert on all his books, I decided to take a look at how a live-action Grisham universe could look.

Although this came to me independently, I found out that I’m not the first person with this idea. A few years ago, there were plans for several series that would interconnect into a John Grisham universe at Hulu that ultimately faltered. Weirdly, the first series, which was “envisioned as the first chapter in a larger franchise, tentatively titled The…