‘Presumed Innocent’ is latest in long line of Scott Turow mysteries on TV
Attorney-turned-selling novelist Scott Turow made the cover of Time magazine the summer of 1990 describing him as the “Bard of the Litigious Age.” And 34 years later, the 75-year-old still is. Over the past four decades, Turow has written 13 works of fiction which have been translated into 40 languages and have sold more than 30 million copies. Several have been transformed into miniseries and TV movies.
In fact, Hollywood filmmakers were salivating in 1987 for the rights to Turow’s first novel, “Presumed Innocent,” a clever, sexy murder mystery with twists and turns that would baffle even Columbo, about a prosecutor accused of murdering the attractive colleague with whom he had been romantically involved “It began a sort of Hollywood frenzy,” Turow told me in a 1992 L.A. Times interview. “It was one weekend’s madness.” And for good reason, the novel spent 44 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and another five months on the paperback charts. Turow chose Sydney Pollack’s $1 million offer. Directed by the formidable Alan J. Pakula, the movie stars Harrison Ford as prosecutor Rusty Sabich with Greta Scacchi as the murder victim Carolyn; Bonnie Bedelia played Rusty wife’s Barbara; Raul Julia was Rusty’s attorney Sandy Stern. The film, released the summer of 1990, received generally strong reviews and earned over $220 million worldwide.
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And now “Presumed Innocent” is back as an eight-part limited series on Apple TV + with Jake Gyllenhaal as Rusty. The series was created by the busiest guy working in the streaming world, Emmy Award-winning David E. Kelly, the former attorney who created such legal eagle series as “Ally McBeal,” “The Practice” and “Boston Legal.”
Among the changes from the novel is the absence of Stern as Rusty’s lawyer. In this version, Rusty’s former boss Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp) takes on his case.
Turow’s next novel “Burden of Proof” spent 11 weeks at No.1 on the New York Times best-seller list in 1990 at the same time “Presumed Innocent” was in release. “Burden,” which centers around Sandy Stern, was turned into a 1992 two-part limited series starring Hector Elizondo as Stern and Brian Dennehy, who played Horgan in 1990 “Presumed Innocent.” The show was Emmy nominated for best miniseries and supporting actor for Dennehy.
Mike Robe, who directed “Burden of Proof,” returned to Turow legal universe directing and producing the 2004 CBS miniseries “Reversible Errors.” William H. Macy, Tom Selleck and Felicity Huffman star in this drama about a man who may have been unjustly sentenced to Death Row for murdering three people after new evidence comes to light. The L.A Times’ Robert Lloyd had mixed feelings about the show: “Though it occasionally stumbles against infelicitous dialogue; icky sexual euphemisms (and ickier sex scenes); a lack of chemistry between two characters…and the unnatural blackness of Tom Selleck’s hair, eyebrows and mustache — he looks to have been styled by a mortician — it does get to where it’s going.”
“Pleading Guilty,” based on Turow’s third novel published in 1993, was a 2010 Fox TV movie that was pilot for a prospective series that didn’t sell starring Jason Isaacs as a former cop turned Chicago attorney described by the Hollywood Reporter as a “big handsome Irish lunk.’”
“Innocent,” Turow’s 2010 sequel to “Presumed Innocent,” was adapted into a 2011 TNT movie starring Bill Pullman as Rusty, now a judge on trial for murdering his wife (Marcia Gay Harden.) And once again, Sandy Stern (Alfred Molina) defends him. Also returning was Mike Robe, who wrote, directed and was a producer of this adaptation. The New York Times wrote: “It’s s not the stuff of a high-stakes action-adventure movie. But it’s a cleverly wrought mystery that fits well on the small screen, helped by a strong cast and diminished expectations.”
And in 2012, Turow wrote a three-part series “Rochelle,” starring Rosanna Arquette, for YouTube’s “WIGS,” a showcase “breaking new ground with award-winning scripted dramas for the digital age.”
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