Update: Hold that outrage. THR reports that “Blood Meridian” has been canned, since James Franco and co. don’t have the rights to the book. Oops, you’d think that’s a detail they would’ve wanted to sort out first.
A film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” has for some time been one of the great holy grails of recent cinema. The “No Country For Old Men” author’s most acclaimed novel, first published in 1985, has had multiple filmmakers attached over the years, including Ridley Scott and Todd Field, but has often been dismissed as too difficult to film due to its brutal, bloody nature.
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But James Franco has never met a challenge he’s shied away from, and several years after shooting 25 minutes of test footage, he’s finally landed the gig to direct an adaptation, with backing from super-producer Scott Rudin. And Russell Crowe, Tye Sheridan and Vincent D’Onofrio have all joined the cast, with Franco likely to take an acting role as well as helming.
This isn’t a done deal yet —it’s being independently financed and will be in the Cannes marketplace— but it’ll be intriguing to see what results. There’s no word on who’s playing who, but it seems likely that Sheridan will be the lead, and Crowe (who’s having a resurgence at present) will play the terrifying Judge Holden.
Franco’s previous McCarthy adaptation “Child Of God” was awful, but he’s been growing as a director and his upcoming “The Disaster Artist” marks his first studio film. Can he pull it off? We’ll find out soon, and you can check out the test footage below in the meantime. [Deadline]