With the success of No Country For Old Men, and with The Road now in pre-production, a third Cormac McCarthy novel is in preparation for the film treatment. This time it’s Blood Meridian : Or The Evening Redness In The West. The grueling western is arguably McCarthy’s masterpiece, but it’s also his most violent. When a tree full of murdered infants BEGINS a novel’s brutality you know you’re in for a rough one, and its heavy themes of human morality are unflinchingly straightforward. However, if anyone can take on such a challenging work it’s Ridley Scott (Kingdom of Heaven, Blade Runner, other films you should already know). The director talks about the difficulties in adapting the work in an interview with Empire Online:

“He writes the book and says if you get it, you get it and if you don’t, you don’t. And therefore there are no answers at the end of the book.”

According to the interview, Scott isn’t concerning himself with an overly gory movie, but instead trying to “give a voice to the two central characters”. One of those characters, the hairless, towering villain known simply as The Judge will give Javier Bardem’s character in NCFOM a run for his money in terms of pure malevolence. Get ready.