Tom Holland will star in and produce The Partner, a drama based on John Grisham’s 1997 bestseller. It follows a young partner at a law firm who fakes his own death in a burning car after stealing $90 million from a client.
The screenplay is being written by Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game.
Grisham wrote The Partner during a time when he was commanding up to $8 million for the movie rights to his best-selling thrillers. His novels helped launch the careers of several A-list actors, including Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, and Sam Jackson in A Time to Kill, and Tom Cruise in The Firm.
Here’s the plot details for The Partner:
Patrick Lanigan (Holland)—a young partner in a white-shoe Biloxi law firm—fakes his own death in a burning car. He’s left behind a wife, newborn daughter, and a secret. What he’s actually done is fake his death to create a template for a new life—stealing $90 million from a client of his crooked law firm.
He finds happiness and love in South America—until the client, who worked so hard to defraud the government, discovers the money is missing from his offshore accounts. Determined to hunt down the lawyer he doesn’t believe is dead, the client’s pursuit forces Patrick to turn himself in to the FBI and face the wife, child, and life he left behind.
The Partner was initially planned as John Lee Hancock’s follow-up to The Blind Side at New Regency, the studio behind A Time to Kill, The Client, and The Runaway Jury. The project stalled, and the rights eventually became available. Rideback later acquired the rights and set up the film at Universal Pictures.
Tom Holland, along with his brother Harry Holland and Will South, recently launched a production label, Billy17. They have joined Rideback as producers for The Partner.
The film is being produced by Universal Pictures.
Source: Deadline
