Movie adaptation of ‘S-Town’ planned

The popular true-crime podcast S-Town is being developed as a movie.

The film production company Participant Media has acquired the featurefilm rights to the seven-episode podcast. Spotlight director Tom McCarthy is in negotiations to direct.

Made by the creators of the podcast Serial, STown is about an Alabama antique clock restorer from Woodstock, Alabama, named John B. McLemore. In 2012, he sent an email to the makers of This American Life asking for help in a murder investigation.

Longtime This American Life producer Brian Reed traveled to McLemore’s hometown. But Reed uncovered not so much a whodunit procedural as a more mysterious small-town tale.

Deadline first reported the deal.