Cormac McCarthy’s Infamously Unfilmable Novel Is Getting Turned Into a Film

Blood Meridian, considered Cormac McCarthy’s magnum opus and also known for being notoriously difficult to bring to screen, is getting another feature film attempt.

According to a report in Deadline today, New Regency is on board to produce the adaptation of McCarthy’s 1985 historical epic, with John Hillcoat set to direct. Reps for New Regency and Hillcoat, who directed another McCarthy adaptation in 2009’s The Road, did not respond to IGN’s request for comment.

Blood Meridian is loosely based on the events of westward American expansion of the 1850s and follows a protagonist known as “the kid” as he gets wrapped up in a gang rangers at the U.S.-Mexico border who kill and scalp Native Americans. Notoriously violent, it wasn’t initially well received critically, but has since gone on to be considered one of the great American novels.

Blood Meridian’s Rocky Road to the Big Screen

While other McCarthy novels have gotten film adaptations, including Oscar Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, getting Blood Meridian to the big screen hasn’t gone as smoothly, with several attempts coming and going throughout the years.

In fact, it’s commonly been called “unfilmable” due to its violence and themes, but McCarthy’s pushed back on that assertion, telling the Wall Street Journal in 2009 it would be “very difficult to do and would require someone with a bountiful imagination and a lot of balls. But the payoff could be extraordinary.”

Tommy Lee Jones was the first to acquire the film rights in the late 1990s after Steve Tesich wrote an initial screenplay for it in 1995. The project didn’t move forward, however, with Jones citing Hollywood studios’ aversion to the violence as the main obstacle.

Ridley Scott would give it another go in the 2000s, but he too told Eclipse Magazine in 2008 that the violence was proving difficult to work with, leading to him leaving the project.

James Franco gave it an attempt a few years later, with Variety reporting in 2016 that Russell Crowe was in talks to star – and then, that very same day, reporting that the project fell apart due to issues with the book rights. In a 2014 essay for Vice, Franco addressed that Oliver Stone and Martin Scorsese were rumored to have tried and failed to adapt Blood Meridian as well.

But hey, maybe sixth time’s the charm?

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.