After years in development hell, a television version of hit film and novel 'The Firm' is slated for a 2012 mid-season debut on NBC in the U.S. and Global in Canada. It's been 20 years since the book topped best-seller lists and 18 since the film added to the oeuvre of films that feature Tom Cruise running. It's hard to say if this time-lapse will be a boon to the show (at least it doesn't feel too soon, like a certain 'Spiderman' reboot) or a deficit -- does anyone care what the McDeere family is up to ten years later?



Maybe they will when they see who's in the cast for the small screen version -- it's a collection of some of the brightest, smartest and creepiest actors working. And I mean that in the most complimentary way. With Josh Lucas as Mitch, Molly Parker as his wife Abby, Callum Keith Rennie as brother Ray and Juliette Lewis as assistant Tammy, we viewers will never be able to trust a single one of them.

Josh Lucas has been working in the film and TV industry since 1990, but he first came into my line of vision with 2002's Sweet Home Alabama, where he traded barbs with Reese Witherspoon. He shot to the top of my list with 2006's Glory Road, a great film in which he played Don Haskins, the Texas coach who shepherded an all-black team to the NCAA championship.

Now I'll get to see more of Lucas, because he's been tapped to star in Possible Side Effects, a Showtime drama pilot written and directed by Tim Robbins.

The show centers on the Hunts, a dysfunctional family running a pharmaceutical company enmeshed in controversy. Lucas will play Max Hunt, who tries to keep the family and business together as the drug industry falls under more and more scrutiny.