The book's title is a phrase from the Quran 4:78: "Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower," which Osama bin Laden quoted three times in a videotaped speech seen as directed to the 9/11 hijackers.

[9][10] Starting with Haggis and eventually speaking with 200 current and former Scientologists,[11] Wright's book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, was published in 2013.

[11][12] In an interview for The New York Times, Wright disclosed that he had received "innumerable" letters threatening legal action from lawyers representing the Church of Scientology and celebrities who were members of it.

[11] The New York Times published Michael Kinsley's review of the book, where he wrote: "That crunching sound you hear is Lawrence Wright bending over backward to be fair to Scientology.

[citation needed] Wright co-wrote the screenplay for the film The Siege (1998), which tells the story of a terrorist attack in New York City that leads to curtailed civil liberties and rounding up of Arab-Americans.

[16] A script that Wright originally wrote for Oliver Stone was turned instead into a well-regarded Showtime movie, Noriega: God's Favorite (2000).

He has worked on a script over several years concerning the making of the epic film Cleopatra that starred Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison.