With True Grit about to saunter into cinemas, it seems that you can never quite assume the Western is dead. And now two filmmakers are making plans for movies in the genre, with a dream team script-writing combo already hard at work. Brokeback Mountain writers Larry McMutry and Diana Ossana are currently toiling over adaptations of two novels – one aimed at Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper, and one for Ridley Scott.
Let’s tackle the Robin Hood director’s chosen tome first. The Colour of Lightning, penned by Paulette Jiles, follows a freed slave named Britt Johnson who has relocated his wife and three kids to Texas with the aim of starting a new life and a freight business. But while he’s away, Comanche and Kiowa natives raid his home, kill his oldest son and kidnap the rest of his family. Swearing revenge, Johnson crafts his plan over one long winter.
While Sir Ridders is producing the film via his Scott Free company and has 20th Century Fox backing it, there’s no telling when he’ll pluck it from his bulging hopper of possible projects and slot it into his schedule to direct. And there’s still the small matter of the Alien prequel taking up a lot of his time for now.
As for Scott Cooper’s film, that’ll be based on SC Gwynne’s book Empire of the Summer Moon, which chronicles the real-life exploits of Comanche warrior Quanah, who led the tribe to hold back the expansion of settlers for 40 years, and whose opposition led to the creation of the Texas Rangers to battle the tribe.
Cooper has Scott Free backing him as well and while there’s no studio mentioned in Deadline’s report, given the production company connection and the fact that Crazy Heart was a success for Fox Searchlight, we’d imagine he’ll find a welcome at the studio, though executives might be watching to see how **Grit **fares at the box office before saddling up.