Great news, literature fans: Cormac McCarthy‘s “Blood Meridian” finally gets the cinematic treatment. Deadline reports that New Regency has an adaptation of the 1985 novel in development, with John Hillcoat set to direct. It’ll be Hillcoat’s second McCarthy adaptation after 2009’s “The Road.”
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For those who haven’t read McCarthy’s novel, “Blood Meridian” takes place around the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, following a young man known only as The Kid as he enters the Indian scalping trade. Along his travels in the nightmarish terrain, he meets The Judge, a mysterious gigantic, highly educated psychopath who may just be the embodiment of manifest destiny.
Hollywood has adapted just three of McCarthy’s twelve novels, but they’ve all been successful. Billy Bob Thornton adapted “All The Pretty Horses” in 2000, while The Coen Brothers adapted “No Country For Old Men” in 2007. Then there’s Hillcoat’s aforementioned “The Road” from 2009. McCarthy also wrote Ridley Scott‘s 2013 film “The Counselor,” the novelist’s first foray into screenwriting. Critics and audiences were left nonplussed by the film and its often cryptic dialogue, but it’s low-key one of the better movies out of Tinsel Town from the 2010s.
Along with New Regency and Hillcoat, Keith Redmon co-produces “Blood Meridian” through Black Bear Pictures. McCarthy and his son, John Francis McCarthy serve as executive producers.
“Blood Meridian” will be Hillcoat’s first feature film since 2016’s “Triple 9.” His recent work includes co-directing the doc “Bob Dylan: Odds And Ends” with Jennifer Lebeau and helming episodes of the Showtime limited series “George & Tammy.” That’s not exactly fare like McCarthy’s novel, but remember that Hillcoat directed the 2005 western “The Proposition,” so he knows his way around the genre.
So who will play The Kid and, more importantly, The Judge in Hillcoat’s take on McCarthy’s masterpiece? Expect casting news on this one soon. And let’s hope New Regency and Hillcoat plan to stay as true to the book as possible, violent though it is; “Blood Meridian” really is one of the best works of American literature.