UPDATE: It'll have to stay a passion project for now. According to Deadline, the announcement was made before certain tricky deals – specifically the rights to the book, which you might just think would be important to make the movie – had been finalised. So now the film is off the table and has apparently been scrapped as it currently stands.
Long a cherished passion project of both director Ridley Scott and producer Scott Rudin, it appears that the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's brutal Western tome Blood Meridian now boasts a powerful line-up with James Franco directing and starring alongside Ryan Reynolds, Russell Crowe, Tye Sheridan and Vincent D’Onofrio.
Franco, another firm McCarthy devotee who has brought his book Child Of God to screens, had previously tried to convince Rudin he was the man for the job with some test footage, but no deal emerged. Now, however, things are finally set up, and, according to Screen International, Rudin and the film will be drumming up financing by selling rights at Cannes.
McCarthy's 1985 novel, which drips not only with the titular life-giving substance but is also heavy with musings on morality and vengeance, is based on historical events that went down on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s. It follows a Tennessee teenager known only as The Kid who encounters a violent group of scalp hunters known as the Glanton Gang led by the menacing Judge Holden. It's unflinching and is almost certain to be controversial if adapted in pure form.
As of right now, it appears that Franco, Reynolds, Sheridan and D'Onofrio are fully on board the still-embryonic project. Crowe – who is also in talks to join Tom Cruise in Universal's new Mummy movie – is still in the middle of hashing out a deal to join them.