According to an update from Mike Fleming at Deadline, who has broken all the major stories related to this project, Scott has been talking to Michael Fassbender about potentially starring in the film.  Fassbender, whose forehead might as well have been stamped with "Next Big Thing," plays a supporting role in Scott's next film, the Alien quasi-prequel Prometheus.

Unnamed sources say that talks have taken place between the director and X-Men: First Class star, but it's unknown just how likely Fassbender is to actually take on the role.  He's set to reunite with his Hunger and Shame director Steve McQueen on Twelve Years a Slave, and that might mean his schedule is full in the near future.

Not only is The Counselor confirmed as Scott's next feature endeavor, but apparently the tentative plan is to commence shooting on May 1st.  That's more than a month before Prometheus hits theaters, suggesting that the director will have work on the science fiction epic wrapped up in a timely fashion.

The project has superseded several other potential movies for Scott.  He sent some time looking into making a Gertude Bell biopic, and for months producers were saying that the Blade Runner continuation would be his next film.  Earlier this week, a rumor asserted that Harrison Ford was in talks to reprise his 1982 role as Rick Deckard, but since there's not yet a screenwriter, the rumor was easily dismissed and subsequently denied by producers.

When McCarthy, the author of Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men, and The Border Trilogy, surprised by turning in a feature screenplay, Steve Schwartz, Paula Mae Schwartz, and Nick Weschler quickly bought the script, having previously produced the McCarthy adaptation The Road.  The story takes place in the contemporary American Southwest and follows a successful, reputable lawyer who decides to dabble in the drug trade but quickly finds himself drawn into a world of violence and irrevocable consequences.

"Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions," said Steve Schwartz when the project became public. "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.”

So though many directors were vying for the job, Ridley Scott will direct The Counselor and he might just get Michael Fassbender to star.  Right on.