Old News: Todd Field May Direct 'The Creed of Violence'

How the hell did we miss this?

Apparently, Todd Field (“Little Children” and “In the Bedroom”) has been adapting the novel “The Creed of Violence,” with a possible interest in directing it. In a recent report by Deadline stating that the director has changed representatives, they mention the project at the end of the report. A little digging shows that the news is old with no new updates (drats!), and the project remains nothing more than a possibility for the writer/director to helm himself.

For those not familiar with the novel by the oddly named Boston Teran, “The Creed of Violence” takes place in Mexico 1910, during the Mexican Revolution and focusing on the American intervention in the war. Full synopsis is as follows, via the official book website:

THE CREED OF VIOLENCE centers on a criminal and murderer who is offered a chance at immunity if he drives a truckload of weapons to the oil fields of Mexico to help bring down a criminal network. He is to be under the command and control of an agent of the Bureau. The agent is his son. The criminal has no idea the agent is his son, as he had abandoned his family when the agent was a boy. The agent knows this is his father, but no one else does, not even the Bureau. What neither man realizes is the utterly profound and potentially devastating effect this experience is going to have on both their lives.

The novel’s website goes on further, tooting its own horn citing similarities to “The Wages of Fear,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” and, interestingly enough, Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian,” which Field has been trying to get off the ground for awhile. That production seems to be at a stand-still, and if this similar picture has better potential to get in front of cameras first, the director’s choice to helm is more understandable.

It doesn’t take a die-hard Todd Field fanatic to realize that this project (and “Blood Meridian” as well) are leaps and bounds away from the dreary and bleak suburban life that he’s come to portray so well. This completely new direction could prove to be fascinating. While we’re eager for the man to get back into the director’s chair with almost anything, he still hasn’t confirmed that he will be directing ‘Creed’ so we may have quite awhile to wait, unfortunately. There is, of course, the previously reported “Hubris” that was being written by “Crash” co-writer Bobby Moresco, but half a year with absolutely no news on the project leaves us extremely skeptical on its future.