Blood Meridian Film Adaptation / John Hillcoat

Hmm, at least it's not James Franco.

The choice seems obvious. Hopefully the entire movie is not.

I will believe it when I see it, but The Proposition is the closest we have to what Blood Meridian should look like.

Personally, though, I'd opt for Refn or Lynne Ramsay, with my script that I spent the last few years working on.

I wish. But Scott Rudin has the rights so it was mostly just a personal exercise than anything. But it was a lot of fun to work on and I've thought about adapting it as a graphic novel. I even have hopes to shoot the first scene (which consists of the first three paragraphs of the novel, expanded to a short film length) as a short.

Scorsese, Ramsay, McQueen, or the Coen Brothers should do it.

He "directed" Child of God and he actually released a test reel of the scene where the Glanton gang meets the judge, and it's horrible (although Scott Glenn makes a fair Tobin and Luke Perry was an interesting choice for Glanton, but the rest of it wasn't worth spit -- poorly shot and staged, and Franco just doesn't have a stylistic bone in his body). He makes book reports with cameras, not art.

If enough people were interested in reading it, sure.

Ramsay has always been my dream director for Outer Dark precisely for this reason, but I think Blood Meridian (despite the richness of its prose) is a very stark story with sensibilities that lean very much towards Ramsay's wheelhouse. And I would argue that she has a fantastic eye for imagery: the Swimmer short and her last two films especially make me think that she could handle the material and give it the potent dread it needs.

Still, Refn's been my go-to since Valhalla Rising.

Lol yeah he's like only one step above MCU no name director

McCarthy offered to write the script for Hillcoat years ago, so this isn't surprising. But I do worry that even though he is our greatest living writer who penned the greatest American work of the twentieth century, he might be too close to the material to really make it work economically for a film. How many great writers adapted their great works successfully for the screen? And McCarthy's screenwriting has left a lot to be desired.

Knowing that McCarthy is writing the script himself doesn't make me more hyped, but it will be a fascinating exercise at the very least when all is said and done.

(I say this as a man who adapted the novel myself, in two existing complete drafts -- one as a 180-page script, one as a 220-pager for an imagined Apocalypse Now workprint where an enterprising director would take what's on the page and winnow it down as needed in post.)

This is one book I did not want to ever see adapted. But I have to accept that it was bound to happen. Just do it with the right people. John Hillcoat is a boring choice.

Erland van Lidth was my choice, but he died in 1987. Most known for his performances in Stir Crazy and The Running Man, Erland van Lidth was a 6'6", 340-pound Dutch-born wrestler (the exact dimensions of the judge from the novel) and MIT grad who was an accomplished singer as well. Alas, the very best physical representation of the judge may be thirty-five years in the grave now...

It's Gonna be Harrelson if this actually picks up