According to Deadline, Scott is looking to make The Counselor his next film, following Prometheus, the 3D prequel to Alien currently in post-production and scheduled for this summer. If the negotiations pan out, Scott would also come on board as a producer through his Scott Free Productions, which he co-founded with brother Tony Scott.
When the novelist behind No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian, and the Border Trilogy surprised by turning in an unsolicited screenplay, The Counselor was bought almost immediately by producers Nick Wechsler, Steve Schwartz, and Paula Mae Schwartz, all three of whom produced the 2009 adaptation of McCarthy's The Road.
The story is set in contemporary Southwest and centers on a successful lawyer who decides to dabble in the drug trade and rather quickly finds himself involved in a violent mess. Producer Schwartz explained, “Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.”
Scott always keeps a number of potential projects in development, and how exactly he would follow up Prometheus has been a question. He recently signed on to direct a Blade Runner continuation that producers have said would be next, but as the project does not yet have a writer, that seems less likely. He has also flirted with a Gertrude Bell biopic in the last year, and his science fiction passion project The Forever War was still sort of alive developmentally, last we heard. Oh, and then there's board game adaptation Monopoly, to which he's been attached for a few years now.
Out of all those, The Counselor seems the most likely, and the speed with which Scott is moving on the project suggests the director is excited about working with McCarthy. And with Scott involved, it will be no problem for the film to find financing.
