For most people when they think of Hunter S Thompson they think of Johnny Depp from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. For some they think of his wild, gonzo journalist ways. But I bet very few think of him as a crusader for justice.

And yet that’s just what he was in his final case – which is now becoming a movie. Prisoner of Denver was a Vanity Fair article written by Thompson with that magazine’s contributing editor Mark Seal, and the rights to it have been picked up by the Motion Picture Corporation of America. The article was part of Thompson’s crusade to free a woman he thought had been shafted by the law.

Says The Hollywood Reporter:

Prisoner” focused on the injustice and abuse of Colorado’s legal system that saw 21-year-old Lisl Auman charged with murder when the crime occurred while she was in the back of a patrol car, already in police custody. She was handed a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

While behind bars, she began a correspondence with Thompson. His unrelenting grass-roots activism — which included enlisting celebrity pals including Johnny Depp, Jack Nicholson, Benicio Del Toro and Woody Harrelson — and the Vanity Fair piece helped overturn Auman’s sentence in 2005.

Thompson killed himself before the sentence was overturned, so he never saw the end of the road.

The producers are going to writers right now, and they’re looking for a movie that’s a cross between Fear and Loathing and All the President’s Men. The Reporter raises an interesting question: could Depp come back for a third go-round as Thompson (see the upcoming Rum Diaries for number two) as well as playing himself? This would be a fitting project for Thompson’s good friend to take on, even if Depp’s a little young to play the gonzo journalist in his later years.
Sorry, horndogs, LiLo isn’t quite ready to take it up the pooper on film, but she is ready to play Linda Lovelace, one of the more controversial and tragic figures in porn – an industry essentially built on controversial and tragic figures.

Linda Lovelace is best known as the star of Deep Throat, a movie about a lady whose clit happens to be located inside her throat. That film was a massive crossover hit, and Lovelace became a cultural phenomenon. But she wasn’t happy, saying that her boyfriend had physically coerced her into porn; Lovelace has said that you can see the bruises from beatings he gave her on her legs in Deep Throat.

Predictably there was a period of substance abuse; Lovelace also caught hepatitis following a blood transfusion in 1970. Later in life she became an anti-porn crusader, a powerful face for those who find hardcore exploitative. Lovelace’s tumultuous life came to an end in a car crash in 2002.

Lohan will play the woman in a biopic called Inferno, which has been kicking around for years. Anna Faris and Rose McGowan were both attached at one point; before that there was another biopic called Lovelace that was to star Courtney Love. Now it seems that Lohan – whose name has been poison to other movie producers – will get this movie going.

Bill Pullman will appear as Hugh Hefner in the movie, although other details are under wraps until the Cannes market, when the official announcement will arrive as producers seek investors.

In the meantime check out Inside Deep Throat, the fantastic documentary that covers the film’s making and its massive impact on society.

Via Variety