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The long-long-long gestating film adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian may be about to make some progress. Multiple Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, Skyfall, The Last Samurai) is to take a crack at the script.
The project has been set up at New Regency. It tells the story of the Kid, a 14-year-old Tennesseean, and their experience with a group of scalp hunters who massacred Native Americans and others in the borderlands. The Glanton gang, a historical group of scalp hunters operated from 1849 to 1850 for bounty, sadistic pleasure, and eventually out of nihilistic habit.
It is widely considered one of the greatest works of American literature.
There have, at times, been question marks over its filmability as it is infamously brutal in places. A major theme of Blood Meridian is the warlike nature of man. Critic Harold Bloom stated it took him several attempts to make it through the novel because he “flinched from the overwhelming carnage”.
About the source material, Logan said:
“Blood Meridian has been one of my favorite novels since first reading it in 1985. It’s a majestic, beautiful and uncompromising book and I’m thrilled to be able to help bring Cormac McCarthy’s dark masterpiece to the screen.”
John Hillcoat (The Proposition, Lawless) will direct. He will also produce alongside Keith Redmon. He has previous form working with McCarthy’s novels, having directed The Road from 2009.
Hillcoat signed on last June, and was working on the script with McCarthy himself. Sadly, McCarthy passed away shortly afterward.
Hillcoat and Keith Redmon will produce, with McCarthy’s son serving as executive producer and McCarthy himself receiving a posthumous executive producer credit.
Blood Meridian has been in various stages of development hell for many years. Over time, Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, Tommy Lee Jones, Todd Field, Michael Haneke, and James Franco have all been involved in varying capacities.
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