Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide in 2005, but the legendary journalist and grassroots crusader was right at it to the very end. One of the last pieces he wrote was a 2004 article for Vanity Fair co-written with Mark Seal, about a female Colorado prisoner who was sentenced to life without parole for a murder that occurred while she was locked in the back of a police car. Seal and Thompson's piece helped get the sentence overturned in 2005, and with an inspirational story like that, you can be sure that a movie isn't far behind.
THR reports that a company I've never heard of, Motion Picture Corporation of America, has picked up the rights to the story "Prisoner of Denver," and will produce the film alongside Seal. They're currently on the hunt for writers who will couch the story around Thompson and Seal as "a couple of gonzo Woodward and Bernsteins," which sounds like nothing more than a huge amount of fun. There may also be some celebrity cameos involved-- Thompson got pals Johnny Depp, Jack Nicholson, Benicio del Toro and Woody Harrelson involved in the crusade.
The tricky part of the story is that Thompson's suicide came before the case was overturned, which puts a damper on what would otherwise be a happy ending. Obviously Thompson was a complicated man with very, very complicated motivations, but it's hard to build a film arguing how passionate he was about seeing this woman's release when he was willing to commit suicide before finding out how it all ended. A well-written screenplay could handle this complexity, of course, but Seal and his team had better be certain they pick a good one. A story with this potential needs as strong a screenplay as it can get.
