Yet another team — New Regency, director John Hillcoat, screenwriter John Logan — is trying make Cormac McCarthy‘s “Blood Meridian” (’85) into a movie.
Don’t they understand this is an all-but-unfilmable property?…that the history of failed adaptations stretches back at least 25 years?…that Joe and Jane Popcorn lack the constitution to cope with frank depictions of such a blistering and ultra-violent book?
“The black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowie knife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head. Two thick ropes of dark blood and two slender rose like snakes from the stump of his neck and arched hissing into the fire. The head rolled to the left and came to rest at the ex-priest’s feet where it lay with eyes aghast.”
Producer Scott Rudin has been riding herd on a Blood Meridian adaptation for many, many years.
In the late ’90s, Tommy Lee Jones acquired the adaptation rights to the story and subsequently rewrote Steve Tesich‘s 1995 screenplay. Never happened, deemed too violent.
Ridley Scott and screenwriter William Monahan entered discussions with Rudin for adapting “Blood Meridian” with Paramount Pictures financing. Abandonedm, too violent, etc.
James Franco took a crack at McCarthy’s novel in 2011. He shot 25 minutes of test footage starring Scott Glenn, Mark Pellegrino, Luke Perry and Dave Franco. Never went anywhere.
On 5.5.16 Variety reported that Franco was negotiating with Rudin to write and direct an adaptation to be brought to the Marché du Film, starring Russell Crowe, Tye Sheridan and Vincent D’Onofrio. Nope.
