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Novelist Cormac McCarthy is no stranger to seeing his literary vision adapted to film.  All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men were both made into films. The adaptation by the Coen Brothers of No Country for Old Men was a box office and critical success garnering multiple Oscar nominations.

McCarthy’s latest novel to be filmed is the Pulitzer Prize winning The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen. It opens November 25 the day before Thanksgiving Day. Not bad timing when you consider how much you’ll be thankful for after seeing this dark post apocalyptic tale about survival and hope.

McCarthy gave an in depth interview to the Wall Street Journal where he discussed The Road, his life, work and what it’s like seeing his books made into films. McCarthy was asked about the feasibility of a film version of his dark, bloody Western Blood Meridian.

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.

Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West is an intense, violent book about the Glanton Gang who hunted down and murdered members of the Yuma tribe 1849-1850. The book’s narrator is a teen who falls in with the gang. It was McCarthy’s fifth novel and his first set in the American West.

For more on Cormac McCarthy read the excellent interview at The Wall Street Journal.

Who do you think has the balls to adapt McCarthy’s  novel Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West?