There’s going to be an S-Town movie. The wildly popular true-crime podcast by reporter Brian Reed will reportedly be directed by Tom McCarthy, who happens to have a shiny statue by the name of Oscar stashed somewhere in his home. He directed Spotlight, another film about journalists unravelling a story that ends up consuming them. But how successfully can he translate a podcast to the big screen? And how will he deal with glaring ethical issues such as the depiction of suicide, the implications of criminality and the question of who really owns this life story?

Sixteen million people listened to S-Town in the first week of it being available on iTunes. It is one of the great blockbusters of the genre, and it was certainly skilfully done. Reed is a reporter for This American Life, so he is a masterful storyteller in the medium. It was during his time on that show that he came across correspondence from one John B McLemore – the crude but beguiling man who would become Reed’s protagonist. He wrote to beg someone to investigate an alleged murder in his home town – a place he called “s**t town, Alabama”, hence the name of the podcast. Reed followed up, drove to him and became ensconced in an increasingly complex tale of crime, drugs, sexuality, wealth, poverty and hidden treasure. It became less about murder and more about who this man was, and what he knew.

S-Town is being turned into a movie. Here’s why that’s such a big problem