Paul Greengrass to Direct Aaron Sorkin's 'The Trial of the Chicago 7'

A few years ago, one of the hottest properties going around Hollywood was Aaron Sorkin's script for The Trial of the Chicago 7. Steven Spielberg had toyed with it for months, and had planned for it to be his next big project after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.Will Smith had been in consideration for the role of Bobby Seale, with Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman and Philip Seymour Hoffman having a role, as well. But a combination of the Writers' Strike and Dreamworks' hesitance led to the project stalling out, and now it sounds as if the studio is ready to get moving on it again, only with Paul Greengrass at the helm.

Deadline reports that Greengrass will direct the film, which follows the trial of seven defendants in the wake of anti-war protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Greengrass had been involved with the project not long after Spielberg dropped out, and before Ben Stiller came aboard to take a stab at it.  If all comes together, the $20M-$30M film would be next on Greengrass' schedule, with production set to begin this January.

So what does that mean for Greengrass' Martin Luther King Jr. biopic, Memphis? The film had been in limbo but was recently brought back to life with Forest Whitaker coming aboard to play the civil rights icon, but now it sounds like it may be in some jeopardy again.