Runaway Jury is a 2003 American legal thriller film directed by Gary Fleder and starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz.

Meanwhile, a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game begins when juror Nicholas Easter (Cusack) and his girlfriend Marlee (Weisz) appear to be able to sway the jury to deliver any verdict they want in a trial against a gun manufacturer.

Two years later, with attorney Wendell Rohr, Jacob's widow Celeste sues Vicksburg Firearms for the company's gross negligence that caused her husband's death.

By observing the jurors' behavior through concealed cameras, Fitch identifies Nick as the influencer and orders his apartment searched, but finds nothing.

Fitch also sends his men to find a concealed storage device with key information in Nick's apartment, after which they burn it.

After the CEO of Vicksburg Firearms loses his temper under cross-examination and makes a bad impression on the jury, Fitch agrees to pay Marlee, to be certain of the verdict.

At the time, the town of Gardner sued the manufacturer of the guns used, and lost; Fitch had helped the defense win the case.

After receiving confirmation of the payment, Nick asks the other jurors to review the facts, saying they owe it to Celeste Wood to deliberate.

[3] Directors slated to helm the picture included Joel Schumacher and Mike Newell, with the lead offered to Edward Norton and Will Smith.

[7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A−" on a scale of A+ to F.[8] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, and stated that the plot to sell the jury to the highest-bidding party was the most ingenious device in the story, because it avoided pitting the "evil" and the "good" protagonists directly against each other in a stereotypical manner, but it plunged both of them into a moral abyss.