Just yesterday, Disney announced that Maleficent, the live-action retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story starring Angelina Jolie as the eponymous villain, would arrive in theaters on March 14, 2014.  Before she moves into the realm of a fantasy origin tale, though, Jolie might just join a very different type of project for a brief spell.  That would be The Counselor, the next film from Ridley Scott that is attracting attention from very famous people and a potential distributor.

The Counselor, the first screenplay from Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Cormac McCarthy, is on track to become a movie very quickly.  We learned about the script's existence about three weeks ago, after McCarthy surprised his agents, who were expecting a new novel, with his first script in December.  Last week, it came out that no less a director than Ridley Scott was in talks.  Now, Scott has locked down a deal to direct The Counselor, he's planning a summer productions start, and he's looking at a badass leading man to play the title role.

Wow.  Two weeks ago to the day, we learned that Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy had taken a break from writing his stripped down novels of violence in order to write his first feature screenplay, The Counselor, which will presumably be a stripped down tale of violence as well.  Producers quickly grabbed up the spec script, and at the time said that they would sort out funding then set to work finding a director.  Seems they may have skipped a step, as one of the biggest directors in the game is in talks to direct: Ridley Scott.

With his stripped down prose almost entirely devoid of punctuation, strangely elegant depictions of violence, and focus on Western imagery and themes, Cormac McCarthy is a distinctly American novelist and a national treasure.  The Pulitzer Prize winning author has seen his work adapted to film three times, most notably in 2007's No Country for Old Men, but now, at 78 years old, McCarthy has surprisingly written his first screenplay, which has already been acquired by producers who have tackled his work before.

Like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, The Wettest Country in the World has simple ingredients that are likely to taste great together.  There's director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave, the musician who previously wrote The Proposition for Hillcoat.  There's an impressive cast, with Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Mia Wasikowska, and Gary Oldman.  Then there's the fact that it's about bootleggers out for blood in the Prohibition-Era South.  That last bit would be the bread on this cinematic sandwich.  Check out a new image from the film, showing Tom Hardy sporting a sharp hat and a revolver.

At this point, vampires have completely saturated the pop-culture marketplace, and postapocalyptic tales are ever more common in the mainstream as well, but that doesn't mean that either can't still be fodder for good movies.  Stake Land, the new independent feature from director Jim Mickle, received very strong reviews at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, and from the look of this trailer, the film is about as far from Twilight as you can possibly get.  Mickle's post apocalyptic America recalls John Hillcoat's in The Road, and his vampires look enthusiastically vicious.  Forget about sparkly bloodsuckers with the Stake Land trailer.

Update: Just in case you haven't yet gotten your fill of trailers, clips, and images for Let Me In, Cloverfield director Matt Reeves' adaptation/remake of Let the Right One In, Overture has released more of each to make sure that you do.  Check out a new international trailer and exclusive clip below...

Overture Films has recently launched a viral website for Matt Reeves' Let the Right One In  re-adaptation/remake Let Me In, which today revealed five new photos from the movie, including a look at Richard Jenkins as Abby's 'guardian'. Check out the viral website HelpMe.net...

Synopsis: An alienated 12-year-old boy befriends a mysterious young newcomer in his small New Mexico town, and discovers an unconventional path to adulthood in Let Me In, a haunting and provocative thriller written and directed by filmmaker Matt Reeves (Cloverfield).Twelve-year old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is viciously bullied by his classmates and neglected by his divorcing parents. Achingly lonely, Owen spends his days plotting revenge on his middle school tormentors and his evenings spying on the other inhabitants of his apartment complex. His only friend is his new neighbor Abby (Chloe Moretz), an eerily self-possessed young girl who lives next door with her silent father (Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins). A frail, troubled child about Owens's age, Abby emerges from her heavily curtained apartment only at night and always barefoot, seemingly immune to the bitter winter elements. Recognizing a fellow outcast, Owen opens up to her and before long, the two have formed a unique bond.When a string of grisly murders puts the town on high alert, Abby's father disappears, and the terrified girl is left to fend for herself. Still, she repeatedly rebuffs Owen's efforts to help her and her increasingly bizarre behavior leads the imaginative Owen to suspect she's hiding an unthinkable secret.