Many have tried and failed to adapt Cormac McCarthy’s brutal Western and magnum opus, Blood Meridian. James Franco, Todd Field, Tommy Lee Jones, and Ridley Scott have taken a shot at it, but it seems that now it may finally be happening. THR reports that John Logan, writer of The Aviator, Gladiator, and the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic, has been set to adapt Blood Meridian for the screen.
Already aboard to direct is John Hillcoat, who successfully adapted McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road in 2008. McCarthy was going to pen Blood Meridian himself before he sadly passed away last year at the age of 89.
Published in 1985 and considered one of the most challenging novels ever written, Blood Meridian is based on historical conflicts along the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s. The story follows the journey of The Kid, a 14-year-old from Tennessee, as he navigates the brutal and harrowing landscape of this new era. The book’s antagonist is the purported historical figure Judge Holden, a brutally violent mercenary and scalphunter with Albinism with no qualms about murdering women, children, and animals.
Personally, I think it’s a terrible book, dense and meandering. I’ve tried to read it multiple times and always give up. It might be better as a movie, though.
Logan said, “Blood Meridian has been one of my favorite novels since first reading it in 1985. It’s a majestic, beautiful and uncompromising book and I’m thrilled to be able to help bring Cormac McCarthy’s dark masterpiece to the screen.”
Other McCarthy novels adapted for the screen were No Country for Old Men by the Coen Brothers, Child of God by James Franco, All the Pretty Horses by Billy Bob Thornton, and Hillcoat’s The Road. Rumors are that Jeff Nichols is eyeing adaptations of McCarthy’s final novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris, but it’s unconfirmed.
