Sony Pictures has picked up Stephen Belber's spec script "The Long Run". Will Smith will produce but is not attached to star says The Hollywood Reporter.

The script centers on a journalist who helps exonerate a highly charismatic death row inmate of a crime he didn't commit.

When the former inmate is recruited to run for elected office, the journalist leaves his post to orchestrate his rise to political prominence.

The journo soon faces a crisis of conscience as he discovers that his friend might be guilty of murder after all.

Playwright Belber wrote the script before directing the Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy "Management," which he helmed during the strike late last year.