FOX Developing OJ Simpson Drama

Mar 21, 2013

Fox is working on a project currently titled "The Run Of His Life: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson" from Nina Jacobson (The Hunger Games franchise) and Brad Simpson (World War Z) and based on legal journalist Jeffrey Toobin’s best-selling book of the same name about the Simpson trial.

"Everybody remembers where they were when O.J. Simpson, riding in a white Bronco, led the police on a low-speed chase all over Los Angeles," Fox noted in its announcement, crediting the event with the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle and "the birth of reality television."

The Hollywood Reporter has more details:

Both projects hail from FX Productions, which recently hired former HBO exec Gina Balian to oversee the newly launched division as it supplies content to FX, the Fox Movie Channel and broadcast cousin Fox. Fox topper Kevin Reilly at the time said the network was hungry for longform content — which FX has found success with in American Horror Story — that will start as 10- to 12-part events that can either stand alone or evolve into franchises. 

[…] 

For its part, the Simpson project recounts the "Trial of the Century," starting with the former football star fleeing police in his white Bronco through his murder trial for the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman and the news cycle that followed. Golden Globe winners Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People vs. Larry Flint) will pen the project.

Deadline Hollywood points out this is not Fox’s first crack at Simpson: In 2006, network was set to air an interview with Simpson based on his proposed book If I Did It, which was going to be published by ReganBooks, an imprint owned by Fox owner News Corp.