A while back, I brought you the news that gay prostitute observer and dicknose enthusiast James Franco was looking to direct an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, in between curating invisible art museums and working towards his Masters of Belles Letres in 16th century French pastry from the Sorbonne (probably). Professor Dicknose recently attended the Toronto Film Festival, where he was asked about Blood Meridian. He revealed that Scott Rudin was on to produce, and that they’d shot 20 minutes of test footage with Scott Glenn and Luke Perry (of course), but the project was “on hold” for “various reasons.” Then he added, “but we are going to make a movie based on [Cormac McCarthy]‘s third novel, Child of God.”

What’s that about, you ask? Why, it’s a book about a man falsely accused of rape who moves to a cave and dabbles in necrophilia, of course. “James Franco Dicknoses Necrophilia.” Book it.

“Scuttling down the mountain with the thing on his back he looked like a man beset by some ghast succubus, the dead girl riding him with legs bowed akimbo like a monstrous frog.”

Child of God must be the most sympathetic portrayal of necrophilia in all of literature. The hero, Lester Ballard, is expelled from his human family and ends up living in underground caves, which he peoples with his trophies: giant stuffed animals won in carnival shooting galleries and the decomposing corpses of his victims. Cormac McCarthy’s much-admired prose is suspenseful, rich with detail, and yet restrained, even delicate, in its images of Lester’s activities.

“You could say that he’s sustained by his fellow men, like you…. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it.” [Amazon]

“Gives suck to the maimed,” you say? Why, that describes all my favorite porn. Anyway, I hope it still stars Luke Perry. “James Franco Dicknoses Necrophilia with Luke Perry: A Choreopoem,” they could call it.

[story via Empire, pic via WooMagazine courtesy of Buzzfeed]

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is so awesome and obtuse and violent that it makes Nicholas Sparks cry like a hippie at a Slayer concert.  There’s been talk of a film adaptation for years, last by Ridley Scott.  What I’d really like to see is a Coen Brothers version of it, but the latest is that James Franco wants to write and direct it.  In typical Franco fashion, this news was tucked into a story about Franco acquiring the rights to Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

Unlike at least a half dozen other films that have been “announced” for Franco in the last few weeks, the actor tells me [As I Lay Dying] is the one he’s most attached to. He’s hopeful of getting it off the ground next spring.

“As I Lay Dying” isn’t the only writer-director project Franco’s involved in. He tells me he’s also in the process of making a deal with Scott Rudin to write and direct Cormac McCarthy‘s “Blood Meridian” in 2012. Franco and Rudin are also partnered in next fall’s Broadway production of “Sweet Bird of Youth” with Nicole Kidman. [via Showbiz411]

Hopefully Franco will be able to get to Blood Meridian between work on As I Lay Dying, six graduate programs, three performance art projects, a choreopoem, and tricking people into having fake gay sex as a practical joke.

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Well this is a fun story.  Joe Penhall adapted Cormac McCarthy’s The Road for the film. He recently published an essay in the Guardian about what it was like attending a private screening in Albuquerque, for which McCarthy himself had driven his silver Cadillac up from Santa Fe (sounds like a Bugs Bunny premise, doesn’t it?).

Finally the three of us sank into the leather armchairs, a discreet distance from one another, and the film began. Immediately, McCarthy began scribbling notes on a reporter’s notepad. [Director John] Hillcoat and I eyed each other nervously. By the end, he had pages of the damned things. He stood up and stretched, yawned and said absolutely nothing as the credits rolled. Finally Hillcoat asked: “Well?” “I have to go to the restroom,” was the impassive response, and he was gone.

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Granted I have a bit of a thing for curmudgeonly old men, but in this recent, rare interview with The Wall Street Journal, No Country for Old Men/The Road/Blood Meridien author Cormac McCarthy provides plenty of evidence of his own awesomeness.  That’s not an opinion, it’s objective fact.  Here are some of the highlights, although I’d recommend reading the whole thing.

WSJ: People have said “Blood Meridian” is unfilmable because of the sheer darkness and violence of the story.

CM: That’s all crap. The fact that’s it’s a bleak and bloody story has nothing to do with whether or not you can put it on the screen. That’s not the issue. The issue is 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. [Editor's Note: I always thought Blood Meridien seemed much more movie-adaptable than The Road]

Besides Coca-Cola, the other thing that is universally known is cowboys and Indians. You can go to a mountain village in Mongolia and they’ll know about cowboys. But nobody had taken it seriously, not in 200 years. I thought, here’s a good subject. And it was.

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98% of The Road consists of the two main characters, a father and son who never get names, avoiding gangs of cannibals and scrounging for food.  Great book, but I realize that makes for kind of a boring downer of a movie trailer.  Solution?  Just slap some triumphant background music over it (starts at the 1:25 mark).  Man, that worked perfectly.  All Viggo did was eat some food and watch a town burn, but I felt all proud, like I was watching Sandra Bullock teach a black kid to play football or something.