As a way to again capitalize on the coverage surrounding The People vs. O.J. Simpson, Marcia Clark is back in the news – but for much different reasons. According to The Hollywood Reporter, one of Clark’s books, Blood Defense, has received a pilot order from NBC.
Clark will co-write the series with Elizabeth Craft and Sara Fain. The three women will also be executive producers of the show, along with David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Laurie Zaks.
Blood Defense centers on Samantha Brinkman, a defense attorney who takes on a high profile homicide case where her personal secrets start to be revealed to the public during the course of the case.
Hmm, sounds fairly similar to what happened to Clark during O.J. Simpson’s murder trial that happened in 1994 and 1995.
During the original trial, Clark was put in the spotlight, along with fellow prosecutor Christopher Darden, as they worked on trying to prove that Simpson had killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman. Simpson was ultimately found innocent in October of 1995.
After the trial, Clark stopped practicing law and instead started focusing on her writing career, publishing books like The Competition and Killer Ambition. She also wrote a book about the Simpson case, Without a Doubt, that was published in 1997.
This is the second pilot order that Clark has gotten based on one of her books. TNT developed Guilt by Association back in 2014 and even cast Julia Stiles for the pilot, but it didn’t end up moving forward with the project.
Clark and everyone involved in the O.J. Simpson murder trial was once again in the spotlight earlier in the year, as FX aired The People vs. O.J. Simpson, the first installment of the American Crime Story anthology series. Clark was portrayed by Sarah Paulson, who was nominated for an Emmy for her role.
Paulson told The New York Daily News that she asked for Clark’s blessing in portraying her for the show, and said getting Clark’s blessing is much more important to her than her Emmy nomination. Paulson also said that she was intimidated to play such an important person and an actual person instead of the fictional characters that she normally plays.
Blood Defense is Clark’s latest book, which just came out in May of 2016. No casting information has been announced and an official air date hasn’t been announced, as NBC has yet to officially greenlight the show.