For 40 years, Hollywood has tried (and failed) to bring Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece 'Blood Meridian' to the big screen.
Blood Meridian is one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed novels. Like everything Cormac McCarthy published before his commercial breakthrough in the 1990s, it failed to leave much of an impact during its initial release, but it didn’t take long to be recognized as a significant work of Western literature.
Blood Meridian Is a Violent, Philosophical Western Trying to explain what makes Blood Meridian a masterpiece is like trying to describe Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 using only semaphores – you’re really best just finding out for yourself. That might not be the easiest task given how daunting Blood Meridian can appear , but those willing to persevere will find a powerful tale comparable to the epics of Shakespeare and Melville.
And then there’s the violence. Blood Meridian is widely regarded as one of the most graphic novels ever written, featuring an unflinching depiction of the American Frontier that will turn away casual readers in a matter of pages. If you can imagine it, there’s a good chance these scalp hunters do it, giving Blood Meridian the feel of a macabre nightmare.
Indeed, it was this exact problem that killed most potential adaptations, such as a version spearheaded by Ridley Scott in the mid-2000s. Alongside his Kingdom of Heaven scribe William Monahan, Scott – never a director who had much time for compromise – intended to go all in with the novel’s violence, resulting in a gore-heavy rendition that sounds more akin to a horror film than a revisionist Western.
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