Popular novelist Michael Connelly brings defender Mickey Haller to the screen

"A movie is like a city," says the novelist Michael Connelly, shaking his head in disbelief. "There's, like, 150 people working, and it's all because of something that came out of your head."

Connelly's novel "The Lincoln Lawyer," one of a series featuring L.A. defense attorney Mickey Haller, comes to the big screen this week starring Matthew McConaughey. The writer, a former crime journalist who's written 23 popular novels, has now twice seen his work turned into a movie — in two very different experiences.

For "Blood Work," which Clint Eastwood brought to the screen as director and star in 2002, Connelly had little direct involvement. "Eastwood said, 'I'd prefer to just go off and tell this story,' " remembered Connelly, in an interview in Seattle last month. "And that's exactly what happened. A month before they started shooting, I got the word that they were starting and they sent me the script." Connelly said he was welcome to visit the set, but had no real influence on the film; the distance was "not my choice, but my agreement."

For "The Lincoln Lawyer," optioned for the movies before it was even published, Connelly had much more involvement. In the book, Haller (who uses a chauffeured Lincoln Continental as his rolling office) lands the plum job of defending a wealthy young playboy on a murder charge — but the client, and the case, turn out to be rather more complex than Haller initially thought.

For several years, Connelly was sent drafts of John Romano's screenplay for comment. "I didn't like the first script, and I sent back 10 pages of notes. They took that to heart — they were smart enough to know that it still needed work." Over the next "14 or so" drafts, "it just got better and better," and Connelly calls the final version "a great adaptation. The character is there, the spirit is there, there's lots of stuff right from the book, but also stuff he had to make up, and it just blends in perfectly, I think."

Connelly also met with McConaughey about a year before filming to discuss the character, and was impressed by the actor's analysis of the role. (McConaughey, in fact, requested a change from the book, altering a scene he felt didn't ring true to the character — and Connelly agreed.) Though the actor doesn't physically resemble Mickey as described in the book (Mickey's mother is Mexican, and Connelly says he'd pictured him more like Andy Garcia), the author had already connected the two.

"I write my books never thinking of an actor," he said. "But I had gone to see a movie called 'Tropic Thunder,' in which [McConaughey] plays a sleazy agent. I leaned over to my wife and whispered, 'He'd be a good Mickey Haller.'

With "The Lincoln Lawyer" arriving in theaters Friday, Connelly's curious to see how the response might shape his own future movie career. McConaughey, he says, likes the character and wants to make another movie, but sequel possibilities depend entirely on box-office take for the first.

And Connelly's long been wanting to see a film featuring his most frequent character, police detective Harry Bosch. A deal's been on the shelf at a major studio for many years; he's hoping "The Lincoln Lawyer" might jump-start it again. Meanwhile, another Haller novel ("The Fifth Witness") will be out this spring, and Connelly's at work on his 24th novel, a Harry Bosch tale with the working title "The Drop."

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com