neither did john grisham. earl stanley gardner was writing courtroom drama in the 1930's and 1940's. "anatty of a murder" came out in 1958. first we have "to kill a mockingbird," which most lawyers and most lawyer authors will tell you is kind of the seminal work of why we got interested. and i started writing a novel as i was approaching my 40th birthday. i wrote most of it on a ferry going to and from work every day. it took me three years. and that book became "special circumstances," story of a murder in a big law firm. it came out in 2000 and spent seven weeks on "the new york times"' bestsellers'

. >>> coming up next, best selling author john grisham on turning "the firm" into a tv series. el "the firm" became the best selling novel of 1991. the movie starred tom cruise. 20 years later "the firm" is heading to the tv, picks up the story of mitch mcdeer and his story ten years after the events of the book. mcdeer has left the witness protection program but can't seem to escape his former life. take a look. >> adieu, misieur. what number are you calling from? >> we need to get out of here, code red. >> what? why? who could be listening? what are you talking about? >> john grisham welcome back. >> always a pleasure. >> i want to get to where the story picks up and takes us in a second. the story of "the firm" the book and eventually the movie is fascinating. somebody actually bootlegged a copy of that book before it was published and took it to movie companies. >> yeah the book laid around publishing offices in new york for a few months and nobody wanted "the firm." my agent showed it to a couple of publishes and nobody wanted to buy it and then it was bootlegged in hollywo

neither did john grisham. earl stanley gardner was writing courtroom drama in the 1930's and 1940's. "anatty of a murder" came out in 1958. first we have "to kill a mockingbird," which most lawyers and most lawyer authors will tell you is kind of the seminal work of why we got interested. and i started writing a novel as i was approaching my 40th birthday. i wrote most of it on a ferry going to and from work every day. it took me three years. and that book became "special circumstances," story of a murder in a big law firm. it came out in 2000 and spent seven weeks on "the new york times"' bestsellers' list. so for those of you who have bought my books, i thank you, because now i don't have to practice law full-time anymore. >> but all kidding aside, you know, i think crime novelists and readers of crime novels whether it's lawyer books or whether it's private detectives or cops, you know, in my world i'm like -- unlike tony's, i can control the outcome. i can get justice in my books because i can fix the endi

." >> the point of the show is to try to live up to sort of the john grisham elements but also throwe where you see that level of drama. >> were you a fan of the movie or book during the day? >> absolutely. >> you have hundred-hour weeks now. >> never ends. >> one hour a day would be pretty much it. >> is your character similar to the tom cruise character we remember from the movie or different? >> it's ten years later, so the family has been through a lot, probably through one of the worst things human beings can go through, trying to survive with the idea a that at any given moment something terrible is going to happen. they're moving around for ten years. the show takes place when they decide on their own, against the fbi's wishes, to come out of witness protection. >> try to have a life. >> lead a normal life. >> is it the kind of show where you miss the first one and catch the second one yo you know what's sort of happening? >> it's very much a show they've written it -- it's nbc. they need it to stand on its own. they need each episode to be individual. so i think that's part o

>> john grisham welcome back. >> always a pleasure. >> i want to get to where the story picks up andhe book and eventually the movie is fascinating. somebody actually bootlegged a copy of that book before it was published and took it to movie companies. >> yeah the book laid around publishing offices in new york for a few months and nobody wanted "the firm." my agent showed it to a couple of publishes and nobody wanted to buy it and then it was bootlegged in hollywood. we sold the movie rights first. >> before the book was published. >> the first call i got was in january of 1990. my agents said we sold the film rights to "the firm." i said what about the book rights? he said that will come now. >> it launched your career. have you ever had a chance to thank that copy boy who bootlegged the copy? >> no one would ever take credit for it. we sort of know who did it, who got the bootleg, used to happen all the time. >> security a little tighter now? >> it's the internet now so everything is out there. the bootleg copies used to happen all the time. >> when you were approached to bring r

. >> so, john grisham was here, the man who wrote the book "the firm."because i have to fill tom cruise's shoes, that's probably a nice compliment. >> you've been in a lot of great movies. in this role, you're running, you run, we are looking at the trailer, you're constantly running. do they have to make special suits so you can do all that running, without ripping your pants. >> there's a question of how many hours a day i can run. they decided i could do 12 and i was like, no. i worked it down to about eight hours a day. i no longer have to work, i just go to work. >> jumping, you jump. oh, man! you talk about filling tom cruise's shoes, does that worry you when you got the part? >> what terrified me, it was a great challenge, obviously, the point is to try to make it your own. but also homage the fact that i think he did a great job. >> congratulations, we know you just got engaged. and supposedly your engagement had something to do with a mountain lion? >> i was doing a movie in big sur, california, we had taken this place up on the side of a cliff

they're used to the john grisham novels. he's paid his taxes on it. there's nothing illegal about it. but it's kind of hard to run a man of the people, main street campaign when you've got a cayman islands bank account. he's going to have to be able to overcome that. as maria said, he's having a real hard time talking about these issues. just from a historic perspective, his father set the modern trend for releasing tax returns. it's going to be striking if his son doesn't follow the man who started the trend of presidential candidates releasing income taxes. >> can you chime in on that? >> i think especially because romney has tolled his father as a great political influence. this is a guy who's talked about his dad a lot on the campaign trail. by not releasing his tax forms, he's doing a disservice. he talked last night about only wanting to release them in one fell swoop. multiple however many that is in april so general election voters can have their turn and democratics can have their turn attacking them. especially because he's running for an of