Based on reviews of The Counselor's screenplay from Script Shadow and The Playlist (posted in full elsewhere below), Angelina is obviously perfectly suited to play the role of Malkina. While it isn't the main character, it is still a lead role and not a "small" part as described by Vulture. It will require several weeks work from her which may bump up against Maleficent's scheduled June start. But since they have a lot of time to spare before the announced March 2014 release date, Disney can afford too push production back a few weeks and thereby skip the Olympics frenzy in London.
Malkina as described in Script Shadow's review:
"....intriguing couple of Reiner and Malkina, who are in the Southwest desert hunting with their pet cheetahs. Yes, this couple, who seem like some kind of S&M Hemingway power-duo, own cheetahs. More specifically, they are Malkina’s cheetahs, and Malkina is the one we ought to be paying attention to. A native of Buenos Aires, we notice the Egyptian cat tattooed on her brown skin. She’s sexy, possessing a Moriarty-like intelligence so cunning even her beau, Reiner, is terrified of her. Another important note about Malkina is that she knows her way around technology, around computers. She might also be quite mad. Perhaps we’re supposed to think she makes Lisbeth Salander seem like a Disney princess in comparison.----
It’s interesting to note that the main story involves all of the men in the script, and it dovetails with character revelations concerning Malkina, as shown by her scenes with Laura (she has an ominous dream about Malkina; pay attention to the scene at the confessional) and the stories Reiner tells about her. Although Reiner, being a criminal, is concerned about the cartel men, he is genuinely frightened of his own girlfriend. His views on women could probably be called misogynistic, and it’s the type of misogyny only a man who has been twice divorced can really relish.----
----
Take for example a tale by Reiner about his girlfriend, the mysterious Malkina. She’s a lover of fast things. Not only does she own two cheetahs, her club is decorated with actual racing cars. Reiner is scared of Malkina, and he tells the Counselor a true story about how she fucked one of his cars. Here’s his description of her bumping her ugly against the windshield, “It was like one of those catfish things. One of those bottom feeders you see going up the side of the aquarium. Sucking its way up the glass...hallucinatory...You see a thing like that, it changes you.”
On another level, according to the finale, I saw The Counselor as a woman’s revenge story, a femme fatale fuck-you to all the violence done against women in Juarez, Mexico. The Counselor is kind of like the Cormac McCarthy version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. "
And from Oli Lyttleton of The Playlist:
Malkina
The Character: Probably the meatiest part in the script, Malkina is an incredibly attractive Argentinean woman who's hooked up with Reiner, although doesn't seem to show any particular affection towards him. She's also hyper-sexualised: arguably the most indelible scene in the script involves Reiner relating a time when his lover fucked his car in front of him. She's an almost Almodovarean femme fatale, with a mysterious, possibly traumatic past that she hints at, without ever revealing it. To say any more would probably give the game away.
Ridley Scott’s The Counselor Piques Interest of Fox, Angelina Jolie
You can call it "No Country for Cold Men."
Insiders tell us that Ridley Scott's planned Cormac McCarthy narco-thriller, The Counselor, is rapidly heating up, so much so that Twentieth Century Fox is now in active discussions to distribute and possibly co-finance the movie — provided Scott gets the white-hot cast he's seeking.
Insiders tell us that Ridley Scott's planned Cormac McCarthy narco-thriller, The Counselor, is rapidly heating up, so much so that Twentieth Century Fox is now in active discussions to distribute and possibly co-finance the movie — provided Scott gets the white-hot cast he's seeking.
For instance, on top of Michael Fassbender, who has previously
been confirmed to star (which would mark his second collaboration with
Scott following this summer's Prometheus), a Fox insider tells us that Angelina Jolie is in talks with Scott to take a small part.
The film, based on an original script by McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road and No Country for Old Men,
is about a lawyer who wants to get just a little bit involved in the
drug business. He then discovers that there's no such thing as a little
bit involved in the drug business.
Intriguingly, Disney announced yesterday that Jolie's upcoming film Maleficent will be released in the United States on March 14, 2014 — almost two years from now. Scott plans to start filming The Counselor this June, while Maleficent doesn't start until late June or early July, theoretically leaving Jolie enough room for a cameo.
It's too early to tell whether these high-flying talent talks will pan out, but one thing is clear: Fox will most likely be involved if the above names are above the title. We'll keep you posted.
With Disney giving Angelina Jolie's big fairy tale movie "Maleficent" a March 14, 2014 release date yesterday, will the actress have time to squeeze in another movie before cameras roll this summer? If so, it will be one of the hottest projects brewing. According to Vulture, the actress is in talks for a small role in Ridley Scott's "The Counselor" which as you all know by now, boasts a script from none other than "The Road" and "No Country For Old Men" author Cormac McCarthy. Set mostly in the border country where Cormac McCarthy's stories often take place, the screenplay follows the titular character -- an attorney, whose name we never learn -- who is in search of a big payday after he proposes to his girlfriend, Laura. So he hooks up with Reiner, an acquaintance with deep criminal ties, for a new business proposition: they'll take $20 million worth of cocaine from south of the border and offload it themselves, aided by the no-good Westray. As you might imagine, things do not go well for anyone involved.
So far, the only confirmed cast member is Michael Fassbender, but in recent weeks Jeremy Renner, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman have all been circling the project. Of course, if Pitt and Jolie were both to take a role, it would mark their first time on screen together since "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." There is no word yet on exactly what part Jolie is taking a look at, but if it's a small role, then we presume it's for the part of Laura, the lead character's fiancé. We read the script and though we said she's a bit underwritten (nothing a punch up can't fix), she does have a couple of great scenes, including the opening sequence.
Scheduling shouldn't be an issue as "The Counselor" is set to lens in June, with "Maleficent" gearing up for July or August. Jolie and Scott haven't worked together before, but they do have a history, as the director was eyeing her Gertrude Bell biopic last fall. This would certainly be a nice way to test the waters of working together. Fox is now looking to finance and distribute the pic, provided Scott can pull together a compelling cast, and we don't doubt he'll able to do just that.
With it set to start in just a couple of months, here's hoping we get more official word on "The Counselor" soon...
Screenplay Review - The Counselor
Carson here. Lots of interest in today's script. I was going to review it but I know next to nothing about Cormac McCarthy. I knew if I was going to do this right, I would have to find the greatest living Cormac McCarthy fan in the world, a man who used to grace Scriptshadow with his presence on a weekly basis. But how to find him? Last I'd heard, Roger Balfour had conned his way onto the set of The Hangover 2 as an extra. Not sure if he made the cut. Well, after exhausting my entire Rolodex, I finally found him, dehydrated and half-comatose in a South American dog breeding clinic. When I asked him to review Cormac McCarthy's first screenplay he replied, "Where are my pants?" That was good enough for me. -- Now I've been hearing all sorts of things about this script. Some have called it unreadable (literally! - Cormac invents his own screenplay format!). Some have called it genius. And the people who call it unreadable can't fathom how anyone could like this script. They think the lovers are reading it through Cormac-tinted glasses. Anyway, I've been too afraid to open it. I'll let Roger take care of that. Oh, and just a reminder. The Disciple Program debuts in three days!!!!!!
Intriguingly, Disney announced yesterday that Jolie's upcoming film Maleficent will be released in the United States on March 14, 2014 — almost two years from now. Scott plans to start filming The Counselor this June, while Maleficent doesn't start until late June or early July, theoretically leaving Jolie enough room for a cameo.
It's too early to tell whether these high-flying talent talks will pan out, but one thing is clear: Fox will most likely be involved if the above names are above the title. We'll keep you posted.
Angelina Jolie Circles Role In Ridley Scott's 'The Counselor'
With Disney giving Angelina Jolie's big fairy tale movie "Maleficent" a March 14, 2014 release date yesterday, will the actress have time to squeeze in another movie before cameras roll this summer? If so, it will be one of the hottest projects brewing. According to Vulture, the actress is in talks for a small role in Ridley Scott's "The Counselor" which as you all know by now, boasts a script from none other than "The Road" and "No Country For Old Men" author Cormac McCarthy. Set mostly in the border country where Cormac McCarthy's stories often take place, the screenplay follows the titular character -- an attorney, whose name we never learn -- who is in search of a big payday after he proposes to his girlfriend, Laura. So he hooks up with Reiner, an acquaintance with deep criminal ties, for a new business proposition: they'll take $20 million worth of cocaine from south of the border and offload it themselves, aided by the no-good Westray. As you might imagine, things do not go well for anyone involved.
So far, the only confirmed cast member is Michael Fassbender, but in recent weeks Jeremy Renner, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman have all been circling the project. Of course, if Pitt and Jolie were both to take a role, it would mark their first time on screen together since "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." There is no word yet on exactly what part Jolie is taking a look at, but if it's a small role, then we presume it's for the part of Laura, the lead character's fiancé. We read the script and though we said she's a bit underwritten (nothing a punch up can't fix), she does have a couple of great scenes, including the opening sequence.
Scheduling shouldn't be an issue as "The Counselor" is set to lens in June, with "Maleficent" gearing up for July or August. Jolie and Scott haven't worked together before, but they do have a history, as the director was eyeing her Gertrude Bell biopic last fall. This would certainly be a nice way to test the waters of working together. Fox is now looking to finance and distribute the pic, provided Scott can pull together a compelling cast, and we don't doubt he'll able to do just that.
With it set to start in just a couple of months, here's hoping we get more official word on "The Counselor" soon...
Screenplay Review - The Counselor
(The Return Of Roger!!!)
An old friend drops by Scriptshadow to review a screenplay from one of the biggest writers in the world, Cormac McCarthy!
Carson here. Lots of interest in today's script. I was going to review it but I know next to nothing about Cormac McCarthy. I knew if I was going to do this right, I would have to find the greatest living Cormac McCarthy fan in the world, a man who used to grace Scriptshadow with his presence on a weekly basis. But how to find him? Last I'd heard, Roger Balfour had conned his way onto the set of The Hangover 2 as an extra. Not sure if he made the cut. Well, after exhausting my entire Rolodex, I finally found him, dehydrated and half-comatose in a South American dog breeding clinic. When I asked him to review Cormac McCarthy's first screenplay he replied, "Where are my pants?" That was good enough for me. -- Now I've been hearing all sorts of things about this script. Some have called it unreadable (literally! - Cormac invents his own screenplay format!). Some have called it genius. And the people who call it unreadable can't fathom how anyone could like this script. They think the lovers are reading it through Cormac-tinted glasses. Anyway, I've been too afraid to open it. I'll let Roger take care of that. Oh, and just a reminder. The Disciple Program debuts in three days!!!!!!
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Premise: A respectable lawyer gets in over his head after becoming involved in the illegal drug business.
About:
Deadline Hollywood described this script as “No Country for Old Men on
steroids”. McCarthy was at work on three different novels when he turned
this screenplay into his agent. Ridley Scott soon attached himself to
the project as director, with his Prometheus star Michael Fassbender in
mind to play the lead. Interestingly, there are also two female roles up
for grabs “who intrude to play leading roles”.
Writer: Cormac McCarthy
Details: PDF created on January 20, 2012
Now this is what a writer looks like!
This script made me want to commit
suicide. It was so bleak, it made me want to overdose on heroin while
skydiving into an avalanche of naked women.
Whoa. Rewind. Roger, where have you been the past year and a half?
Brian K. Vaughan says that the ages
between 22 and 27 are important years in a male’s life. The things that
happen during that timeframe shape and guide the transformation of a boy
into a man. I spent the past year and a half becoming a man.
My journey started in the
Philippines, where I worked in the anime industry as a Foley Artist. It
was here that I learned someone has to create the sound fx for a
tentacle violating an orifice. That someone was me. Sometimes I would do
nothing but stand on a soundstage and plunge my hand in and out of a
peanut bar jar for fourteen hours straight. I grew a beard and
air-licked microphones, the resultant sound was used in children’s
cartoons in Australia. But life couldn’t be squishy and honey-roasted
forever.
You can only hide from your destiny
for so long before it comes looking for you. And if your destiny is
writing, then your destiny kicks you in the teeth, yanks you out of your
cushy Foley Artist gig and turns you into a creature of dreaming and
longing.
I spent a lot of time writing poems
about He-Man while sitting alone in hotel rooms eating Ritz crackers. I
snorted chamomile tea and cat nip through rolled-up Bukowski poems and
called it the hipster speedball. The hipster speedball helped me write
and publish an Animorphs novel that was about a boy who grows an owl’s
beak that was really a Bildungsroman about first boners. I posed for my
author photo in front of a shelf full of Star Trek novels and was called
gorgeous. I wanted to write a sequel but couldn’t. I got fingered by
the ghost of Hal Ashby and for a week all my dreams were like Wes
Anderson movies yet to be made. I watched the first season of Downton
Abbey in one sitting with a 20-year old girl who thought she was the
fifth Pevensie sibling. We held hands the whole time and shared an
Edwardian world together but afterwards we never saw each other again.
Like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, I made my own Wilson out of a prenatal body
pillow and dealt with my sadness by straddling Wilson and making Wilson
watch me punish my Sailor Moon bedsheets. I read fantasy novels and ate
confectionaries and did p90X. I became better, stronger, faster and
wondered how Tron Legacy got made and if Oblivion would be better. I
wondered why they never did a storyline on The Gilmore Girls where a guy
dates both the mom and the daughter at the same time. I decided to
amend this oversight and wrote the teleplay on spec with me as the guy
and when I presented it to Amy Sherman-Palladino she politely informed
me the show had been cancelled and she consoled me as I wept into a
burrito by saying, “There there, young Balfour. There there. You wrote a
Gilmore Girls script. You are a true man, now.”
Sorry we asked. So, you read Cormac McCarthy’s The Counselor?
Twice. The first time because I’m a
legitimate Southern-fried McCarthy scholar and the second time because I
only vaguely understood it the first time. Have you ever tried to watch
a movie and halfway through, think, “Man, I don’t think I understand
the plot but I’m pretty excited by all the violence”? I did that a
couple weeks ago when I saw Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. Sometimes when
I see art films, I think, “Man, this is pretty unconventional but I
also feel sad and I kind of want to stick my head in an oven like Sylvia
Plath.” I did that a couple of weeks ago when I saw Derek Cianfrance’s
Blue Valentine. The Counselor kind of combines both of those ambivalent
sensations and does so with Faulkner-in-Sanctuary-mode panache.
You ever receive a screenplay and
open it up and think, “What the fuck is this? A play?” Because I did
that, too. As someone who works as a screenwriter, as someone who took
many years to adapt to the industry’s formatting and conventions, my
first instinct was to scream, “Fuck this guy! How dare he invent his own
screenwriting format! Who the fuck does this guy think he is?!”
Oh, it’s Cormac McCarthy. He won the
Guggenheim Fellowship, also known as The Genius Award. In addition, not
only has he won the National Book Award, the National Book Critics
Circle Award, the PEN Award, but he also won Pulitzer Prize for fiction
for The Road. With those kind of laurels, you can kind of do whatever
you want.
Still, this raises the question, in
the world of screenplays, do we still hold such an author to the same
standards as everyone else? When it comes to story and character, yes.
But, when it comes to formatting and breaking rules, you’re just gonna
have to leave your specialized mindset at the door. There’s an excellent
article on creativity in Psychology Today that says, “The more expert
and specialized a person becomes, the more their mindset becomes
narrowed and the more fixated they become on conforming what they
believe to be absolute. Consequently, when confronted with new and
different ideas, their focus will be on conformity. Does it conform with
what I know is right? If not, experts will spend all their time showing
and explaining why it can’t be done and why it can’t work.”
I’m not here to do that. Look, even
in the world of novels, McCarthy has always gone against the grain. The
man doesn’t like semicolons and uses commas sparingly, so the glue
holding all the sentences together are contractions. He never uses
quotation marks either. Why should we expect anything different in one
of his scripts? He doesn’t see the need for slugs. Diagramming some of
his sentences in the AD lines is like a choose-your-own-adventure story.
He still writes on an Olivetti typewriter. These pages were probably
collected in a shoebox and then quickly retyped by an assistant into MS
Word.
It’s kind of like having a
not-playfully racist grandfather who is set in his ways. Sure, you can
try to tell him that the word “negress” is not considered proper lexicon
in polite society, but what’s the point? He’s just gonna keep on
truckin’ till his number’s up. (Double Cliché).
So, what’s the story about, Rog?
Think Body Heat or the Edgerton’s The
Square but set against the backdrop of the border world McCarthy
explores so well in his Border Trilogy and novel, Blood Meridian. If
these stories exist in a Venn diagram, they take place inside the circle
where the not so insulated worlds of Mexico and the United States
collide. This territory is a no man’s land where characters from the
so-called civilized world experience great violence and brutality, where
destiny has its own gravitational pull and the best at surviving the
territory are those who are so damaged they’ve transcended polite
society’s moral code. It is a place heroism is not rewarded. It’s
punished. If you don’t believe me, look at the ending to No Country for
Old Men. In the face of evil, only other predators have a chance at
surviving.
So, it’s no surprise that McCarthy
chooses to tell a cautionary tale set against the drug war violence that
is taking place in Mexico right now. In Mexico, murder has become a
national pastime. It is a collective enterprise. And, it is spilling
over into our border towns.
Who are the characters?
This is the tale of the Counselor, a
man, who when we first meet him, is in bed with the love of his life,
Laura. We see him in Amsterdam, in a jeweler’s shop, procuring the
perfect diamond for his bride to be. We’re treated to a philosophical
and prophetic lesson from the Dealer. He tells the Counselor the Jewish
civilization is the only true civilization, and that any country that
has driven the Jews out has never been the same. He waxes a McCarthy
monologue about the one true God, who is immovable, and tells us that
stones are the true witnesses since they’ve been around since the
beginning. When the Counselor picks out his diamond for Laura, the
Dealer says, “This is a cautionary stone. You will see.”
Intercut this with the intriguing
couple of Reiner and Malkina, who are in the Southwest desert hunting
with their pet cheetahs. Yes, this couple, who seem like some kind of
S&M Hemingway power-duo, own cheetahs. More specifically, they are
Malkina’s cheetahs, and Malkina is the one we ought to be paying
attention to. A native of Buenos Aires, we notice the Egyptian cat
tattooed on her brown skin. She’s sexy, possessing a Moriarty-like
intelligence so cunning even her beau, Reiner, is terrified of her.
Another important note about Malkina is that she knows her way around
technology, around computers. She might also be quite mad. Perhaps we’re
supposed to think she makes Lisbeth Salander seem like a Disney
princess in comparison.
The third strand in this tapestry is a
septic tank truck that is making its way from Mexico to the United
States, which we can assume is loaded up with about twenty million
dollars worth of Colombia’s finest. All these elements we are introduced
to as the opening credits are playing.
What’s the caper, Rog?
Much like the protagonists in Body
Heat and The Square, the Counselor is motivated by his love and lust for
a woman. Because of her, he wants to get rich quick. He decides to go
all in concerning a business venture with Reiner, who has learned never
to speak in arraignable phrases. Reiner is filthy rich because his
demeanor and surroundings and the gifts he provides for Malkina tell us
so. And it’s easy to see that Reiner’s source of wealth comes from mines
that aren’t always legal.
The idea is to get into the drug
business unnoticed while all the cartels are busy killing each other.
That septic tank truck from earlier? It’s carrying 625 kilos of cocaine
from Mexico to Chicago and will sell for two grand an ounce on the
street, meaning this is a twenty-million dollar payload for all
involved. The Counselor asks, “If the drug wars stop this will dry up,
right? “Yeah. Bad times are good times for guys like us.”
But, what happens if the cartels find
out about this new start-up company? The answer to that question, as we
learn in the second half of the script, is very bad things. The
characters tell us that three thousand people were killed in Juarez
alone last year. We learn something about the nature of the men in these
cartels. Before the drug wars, thousands of young and attractive
factory workers were being kidnapped and sexually mutilated. The maquila
girls, they were called.
The money trail led to the men in the
cartels. “So much cash you’re using it to insulate your own house and
you’re morally depraved out of all human recognition, what will you
spend your money on?” The answer to that, is snuff films, and we learn
that we’re probably not separated more than two degrees by someone who
has seen a snuff film.
When it comes to men who have
kidnappers on full retainer, even the smallest little detail becomes
life or death for the Counselor and everyone he knows. There’s a lot of
talk about the dangers of dabbling into this trade, and in fact, most of
the scenes in the script are characters warning the Counselor. One of
the characters even quotes Blood Meridian at one point, “Yet even the
smallest crumb can devour us.”
So, what’s the crumb that devours everyone, Rog?
There’s a drug runner, a character
named Young Man, who is to rendevouz with the septic tank truck and
presumably drive it to Chicago. Except, you know, he never makes it to
the truck.
There’s another problem. Not only
does the Counselor have to worry about what may become of the drug
runner, there are complications with the money people. He has to get
money into Mexico and get it back out again. In order to do this, one
has to filter the money through a corporation, which means there has to
be a money person on the inside handling all of the bank transactions,
“The biggest issue is that your guy is not going to fall in love with a
pole dancer and go south with three million of your ducats. The biggest
issue is that someone is going to find out who he is and what he’s up
to.”
In one of the more creative ways of
killing a drug runner I think I’ve ever heard about or seen, we learn
that there are other parties looking to intercept this shipment of drugs
and ruin everything for the Counselor. To complicate matters, the
Counselor is linked to the drug runner in a way that is most unfortunate
and may redefine dramatic irony.
It’s interesting to note that the
main story involves all of the men in the script, and it dovetails with
character revelations concerning Malkina, as shown by her scenes with
Laura (she has an ominous dream about Malkina; pay attention to the
scene at the confessional) and the stories Reiner tells about her.
Although Reiner, being a criminal, is concerned about the cartel men, he
is genuinely frightened of his own girlfriend. His views on women could
probably be called misogynistic, and it’s the type of misogyny only a
man who has been twice divorced can really relish.
Of course, everything goes wrong for
our guys and the most exciting part of the script is seeing how that all
unfolds. I’m not exaggerating when shit hits the fan and a line forms
to kill the Counselor. My favorite part was seeing how one specific
character reacts to all this misfortune and how they enact revenge on
some of the parties responsible.
What do you think attracted Ridley Scott to this script?
Ridley Scott has been trying to adapt
Cormac’s novel, Blood Meridian, for a long time now. There’s even a
draft floating around penned by William Monahan, but even Scott can be
quoted as saying that adapting McCarthy is a difficult gambit because
the work is so prosaic, and much of the power comes from the violent
beauty of his language. The sentences weave a spell, and I think the
closest we get to that in The Counselor are the strange monologues that
hint at some darker premonition.
Take for example a tale by Reiner
about his girlfriend, the mysterious Malkina. She’s a lover of fast
things. Not only does she own two cheetahs, her club is decorated with
actual racing cars. Reiner is scared of Malkina, and he tells the
Counselor a true story about how she fucked one of his cars. Here’s his
description of her bumping her ugly against the windshield, “It was like
one of those catfish things. One of those bottom feeders you see going
up the side of the aquarium. Sucking its way up the
glass...hallucinatory...You see a thing like that, it changes you.”
Or, it reminds you of a face hugger
sucking at the glass of a specimen jar in Alien, and you can’t help but
think McCarthy was trying to seduce Ridley Scott as he wrote this
fucking thing.
So, what’s the verdict, Rog?
I think McCarthy fans, who relish the
poetry, tone and cadence of his language, and appreciate his stylized
and precise dialogue, will love the movie. And, I’m mainly talking about
those who are fans of his play The Sunset Limited or the film version
of No Country for Old Men. Because The Counselor has a lot of dialogue,
and a lot of the scenes feel play-like in the same way that Tarantino
conversations feel play-like. I think it hearkens back to older movies,
where there are more scenes of simply people sitting in diners or at
tables and desks, talking.
It’s a challenging piece of art,
thought-provoking, no doubt, but I also think it may just be this
strange and alienating movie to people who aren’t already fans of
McCarthy. It feels exhausting and was certainly a punch to the gut.
If you subscribe to the Chris
Columbus philosophy, the one that says, “I can understand the validity
of showing people the ugliness of the world, but I also think there is a
place for movies to leave people with a sense of hope. If your film
isn’t going to do that, I just don’t think it’s worth making,” then you
may be turned off by this work. Cormac writes about life and death, and
the concept of hope is often a foreign one in his tales, more the
subject of philosophical debate between characters.
My interpretation, after having a
chance to let this thing settle for a few days, is that Cormac is making
a point. Violence overtook Mexico because so many people closed their
eyes to it. If America continues to close our eyes and ignore the drug
war violence, it will only be a matter of time before it overtakes us,
too.
On another level, according to the
finale, I saw The Counselor as a woman’s revenge story, a femme fatale
fuck-you to all the violence done against women in Juarez, Mexico. The
Counselor is kind of like the Cormac McCarthy version of The Girl with
the Dragon Tattoo.
[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Rewarding vs
Punishing the Protagonist. Usually, in movies where the hero is being an
actual hero, you know, making the right kind of decisions, doing heroic
things like be willing to put his life in danger and even sacrifice his
well-being to achieve a goal, the common thing to do is to reward the
character with victory at the end of the story. But with stuff like Body
Heat, The Square, No Country for Old Men and this script, these are all
about guys motivated by their lust and love for a woman. They want to
spend the rest of their lives with this woman, and they want to
illegally land a nice nest egg on which they can retire on with this
woman. They compromise their own sense of morality and ethics, and in
the audience’s eyes, do something that is considered illegal to obtain
this nest egg. Thus begins the downward spiral of making bad decisions
that always leads to death, or punishment, for the protagonist. Things
just get worse and worse. The rule of thumb for protagonists that do
something that upsets the collective audience’s sense of ethics or
morals or code of conduct, is to punish the protagonist. If the
protagonist were to get away with the caper, this would upset the
audience on some level. McCarthy is interesting because he pits this
character making bad decisions against predators who just might be the
embodiment of evil, so deep down you kind of want these guys to win, but
it’s always the most fucked-up person that gets away with their lives
in the end and wins the game. It’s something to think about.
Accusations of ageism fly around Hollywood all the time, but they seemed
to be fairly definitively refuted in recent weeks when a 78-year-old
became the hottest screenwriter in town after his film sold, attracted Ridley Scott and Michael Fassbender, and was fast-tracked into production this May. Of course, it helps if that 78-year-old is Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer prize-winning author of "Blood Meridian," "All The Pretty Horses," "The Road" and the source material for Best Picture winner "No Country For Old Men."
But it's still a rare achievement, to get a film from the page to a
greenlight, with A-list talent attached, in only a matter of days.
As so often happens with hot spec scripts, McCarthy's screenplay "The Counselor," leaked almost immediately, and like many others, we managed to get our grubby hands on a copy. And as one of the most talked-about scripts in a while, we thought we'd take a stab at casting the project, as we did with Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" last year.
Set mostly in the border country where McCarthy's stories often take place, the screenplay (which is laid out in a play-like format, much to the ire of amateur screenwriters all over the internet) opens with a couple, the Counselor of the title -- we never learn his name -- and Laura, in bed. They're clearly besotted with each other, as they share some very sexually explicit dialogue. Across the border in Mexico, a septic tank truck is specially modified and loaded up. And in the desert grasslands, another, very wealthy couple, Reiner and Malkina, take their cheetahs out hunting. Yes, cheetahs.
The Counselor is, as you might imagine, an attorney, but is also in search of a big payday after he proposes to Laura. So he hooks up with Reiner, an acquaintance with deep criminal ties, for a new business proposition: they'll take $20 million worth of cocaine from south of the border and offload it themselves, aided by the no-good Westray. As you might imagine, things do not go well for anyone involved.
If you know McCarthy's work, even just from the recent film adaptations, than you'll have a good idea of what to expect here: blood and savagery, much more so than even 'No Country.' There's also a thick vein of sexuality running through; mostly verbal, it should be said, but more than enough that the film may hit ratings issues down the line, even without the incredibly extreme violence. It'll be an interesting test case, anyway.
So does it work? Very much so: it's pure uncompromised McCarthy, with an atmosphere of looming menace from the first frame, with things only getting bleaker from there. Some characters are perhaps a little thinly drawn, but there may be some redrafting. McCarthy's scripting technique might aggravate Robert McKee disciples, but we have no desire to swap his prose for more sparse stage directions. And while it's very talky -- with multiple page monologues and long dialogue scenes: there's also some indelible images that haunt us still, days after we read the thing. There's also an explicitly political tint that feels new from the writer.
For the record, some incorrect info has been doing the rounds: Deadline referred to a villain, a part being circled by Brad Pitt, Jeremy Renner and Javier Bardem, but there is no real villain per se (we'll get to that in more detail below). Meanwhile, there's one female part that could arguably be described as a villain, but even that doesn't quite give the whole picture.
What we can't work out at this point is what Scott will make of it. Genre wise, it's very different from anything he's ever tackled; while he's displayed lashings of gore in his work before, there's a nihilism to it that feels very different for him, and he wouldn't be the obvious director to come to mind when reading the script (in fact, his brother Tony, in "True Romance" mode, might seem like a better fit, in some ways). But we're glad he's pushing himself, even as he approaches his seventy-fifth birthday, and we're dying to see how it turns out. So, let's have a look at the characters in the film, and who would be a good fit to play them.
The Counselor
The Character: A moderately successful lawyer in an unnamed town near the border with Mexico (who is 43 years old in the script), The Counselor is a fundamentally decent man, undone by greed, and his absolute love for Laura.
Ridley's Choice: Michael Fassbender is locked in obviously, reuniting with his "Prometheus" director. And it's a damn fine choice: Fassbender can carry off the moral ambivalence and the raw sexuality, while also filling in some detail where the script leaves him something of a cypher. The part is kind of an everyman, but in Fassbender's hands, it should turn out to be something far more interesting.
Reiner
The Character: A criminal acquaintance/client of The Counselor, who drags him into the underworld, Reiner had done pretty well out of the drug trade so far, living an opulent life that includes his two pet cheetahs. He's something of a racist, and is wounded by his last girlfriend leaving him for, in his words "a negress," but is deeply in love with Malkina, even while he knows that he can't trust her at all, and suspects that she'll one day be his undoing.
Our Choice: It's tricky, this one, in part because McCarthy doesn't specify an age. Our gut says that he's someone not far from The Counselor's age, possibly even a little younger (he's more hot-headed than his friend). We can't imagine Pitt or Bardem in this role, although it's likely that this is the one that's attracting the attention (it's the second largest male part in the film), although Renner's certainly feasible. Our first choice, however, would be Joaquin Phoenix, who'd bring his trademark unpredictability to the character, and given his post-comeback trend of working with top directors like Paul Thomas Anderson and James Gray, he might be attracted to a reunion with his "Gladiator" director. He's meant to be shooting Spike Jonze's next film shortly, but maybe scheduling could be worked out.
Other Options: Assuming we're on the right track with someone vaguely around Phoenix or Renner's age, there's a number of options on the table. One that sprung to mind immediately was Scott's "Matchstick Men" star Sam Rockwell, who could bring a nice nerviness to the character, and play well off Fassbender. Along not disimilar lines would be Adrien Brody, Colin Farrell or Oscar Isaac, the latter of which is hot at the moment thanks to working with the Coen Brothers, and was in "Body Of Lies" and "Robin Hood" for Scott. Tom Hardy would be an excellent choice, except that he's going to be shooting "Mad Max: Fury Road" for much of the rest of the year, and will therefore be unavailable. On the younger end of the scale would be Ryan Gosling, Ben Foster, James Franco or Justin Timberlake, while an offbeat, but fascinating choice would be rising star Rafe Spall, another member of the "Prometheus" crew. Going a touch older, Guy Pearce, Patrick Wilson or Eric Bana would all be interesting.
Malkina
The Character: Probably the meatiest part in the script, Malkina is an incredibly attractive Argentinean woman who's hooked up with Reiner, although doesn't seem to show any particular affection towards him. She's also hyper-sexualised: arguably the most indelible scene in the script involves Reiner relating a time when his lover fucked his car in front of him. She's an almost Almodovarean femme fatale, with a mysterious, possibly traumatic past that she hints at, without ever revealing it. To say any more would probably give the game away.
Our Choice: While there's a host of actresses who could pull this one off, there's one that stuck out for us: "The Skin That I Live In" star Elena Anaya, who's already demonstrated that she can play complex, vengeful female roles with aplomb. She might not be as domineering as some possibilities, but we think she could do something special with the part.
Other Options: We're sure Penelope Cruz is high on executive wish-lists, but we don't quite see her in the part; Paz Vega might be a better fit, or possibly Catalina Sandino Moreno or Ana Claudia Talancon. As for American actresses who might be able to pass it off, there's Eva Mendes or Genesis Rodriguez ("Man On A Ledge"), but we're not yet convinced that either has the chops to pull off McCarthy's dialogue, although Mendes' role in "The Place Beyond The Pines" might change our minds. And if Scott isn't too attached to casting true-blue Hispanic actresses (we would argue it's kind of crucial), Eva Green or Marion Cotillard could both be excellent choices.
Laura
The Character: The Counselor's fiancee is sadly a little underwritten in the script. That being said, she's got some intriguing character traits, and a couple of great scenes, including the opening, and a heart-to-heart with Malkina over the phone. In terms of size and importance, Kelly Macdonald's part in "No Country For Old Men" is a good guide.
Our Choice: Laura is 36 in the script, but probably going to be cast younger, given the scale down to Fassbender. Given that the actress needs to be fearless, attractive, and to play well opposite Fassbender, the obvious choice for us is Jessica Chastain. Once she wraps Kathryn Bigelow's latest, she's got a perfect gap in her schedule before going to Broadway in the fall, and Scott would be a fool not to want her.
Other Options: Given the level of talent involved elsewhere, we imagine they'll probably be able to attract a better calibre of actress than the part necessarily demands. For instance, one of our first thoughts was Amy Adams, who's capable of much more than the aw-shucks types she tends to get given these days, although as with Phoenix, it depends if shooting on Spike Jonze's latest is done in time. Other possibilites include Michelle Williams, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Rachel Weisz, while if they go for slightly smaller, younger names, Kate Mara, Lizzy Caplan and Mary Elizabeth Winstead might all work.
Westray
The Character: The most enigmatic character in the script, one never quite knows what Westray's exact job is, but he's in the drug trade, and advises and aids The Counselor on his new sideline gig. Described as the same age as the protagonist, but feels older on the page.
Our Choice: It's very also possible that this is the part that Pitt, Bardem and maybe Renner have been linked to (although it could be Reiner too), and all could be interesting. But the one who came to mind for us was an actor who's proven a recent favorite of Ridley Scott: Mark Strong, whose performance in "Body Of Lies" led to his current omnipresence. The actor has the right kind of gravitas and look for the part (he was down to the last two, with Bardem, to play Anton Chigurh in 'No Country'), though with "Blood" and Bigelow's thriller on the calendar, scheduling could be an issue.
Other Options: Scott's most frequent collaborator of late, Russell Crowe, would fit in nicely here, but he's found himself in demand of late, with "Noah" and "Harker" competing to be his next after "Les Miserables." Idris Elba would also be a great fit, while names like Edward Norton, Demian Bichir, Michael Shannon, Don Cheadle, John Ortiz, John Hawkes or even Sean Penn could all be possible. We know some of y'all have read this: if you have, feel free to add your own picks below. Especially if your name is Ridley Scott.
Pretty baller for a spec.
We Read It: Casting Ridley Scott & Cormac McCarthy's Bleak, Beautiful Collaboration 'The Counselor'
As so often happens with hot spec scripts, McCarthy's screenplay "The Counselor," leaked almost immediately, and like many others, we managed to get our grubby hands on a copy. And as one of the most talked-about scripts in a while, we thought we'd take a stab at casting the project, as we did with Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" last year.
Set mostly in the border country where McCarthy's stories often take place, the screenplay (which is laid out in a play-like format, much to the ire of amateur screenwriters all over the internet) opens with a couple, the Counselor of the title -- we never learn his name -- and Laura, in bed. They're clearly besotted with each other, as they share some very sexually explicit dialogue. Across the border in Mexico, a septic tank truck is specially modified and loaded up. And in the desert grasslands, another, very wealthy couple, Reiner and Malkina, take their cheetahs out hunting. Yes, cheetahs.
The Counselor is, as you might imagine, an attorney, but is also in search of a big payday after he proposes to Laura. So he hooks up with Reiner, an acquaintance with deep criminal ties, for a new business proposition: they'll take $20 million worth of cocaine from south of the border and offload it themselves, aided by the no-good Westray. As you might imagine, things do not go well for anyone involved.
If you know McCarthy's work, even just from the recent film adaptations, than you'll have a good idea of what to expect here: blood and savagery, much more so than even 'No Country.' There's also a thick vein of sexuality running through; mostly verbal, it should be said, but more than enough that the film may hit ratings issues down the line, even without the incredibly extreme violence. It'll be an interesting test case, anyway.
So does it work? Very much so: it's pure uncompromised McCarthy, with an atmosphere of looming menace from the first frame, with things only getting bleaker from there. Some characters are perhaps a little thinly drawn, but there may be some redrafting. McCarthy's scripting technique might aggravate Robert McKee disciples, but we have no desire to swap his prose for more sparse stage directions. And while it's very talky -- with multiple page monologues and long dialogue scenes: there's also some indelible images that haunt us still, days after we read the thing. There's also an explicitly political tint that feels new from the writer.
For the record, some incorrect info has been doing the rounds: Deadline referred to a villain, a part being circled by Brad Pitt, Jeremy Renner and Javier Bardem, but there is no real villain per se (we'll get to that in more detail below). Meanwhile, there's one female part that could arguably be described as a villain, but even that doesn't quite give the whole picture.
What we can't work out at this point is what Scott will make of it. Genre wise, it's very different from anything he's ever tackled; while he's displayed lashings of gore in his work before, there's a nihilism to it that feels very different for him, and he wouldn't be the obvious director to come to mind when reading the script (in fact, his brother Tony, in "True Romance" mode, might seem like a better fit, in some ways). But we're glad he's pushing himself, even as he approaches his seventy-fifth birthday, and we're dying to see how it turns out. So, let's have a look at the characters in the film, and who would be a good fit to play them.
The Character: A moderately successful lawyer in an unnamed town near the border with Mexico (who is 43 years old in the script), The Counselor is a fundamentally decent man, undone by greed, and his absolute love for Laura.
Ridley's Choice: Michael Fassbender is locked in obviously, reuniting with his "Prometheus" director. And it's a damn fine choice: Fassbender can carry off the moral ambivalence and the raw sexuality, while also filling in some detail where the script leaves him something of a cypher. The part is kind of an everyman, but in Fassbender's hands, it should turn out to be something far more interesting.
The Character: A criminal acquaintance/client of The Counselor, who drags him into the underworld, Reiner had done pretty well out of the drug trade so far, living an opulent life that includes his two pet cheetahs. He's something of a racist, and is wounded by his last girlfriend leaving him for, in his words "a negress," but is deeply in love with Malkina, even while he knows that he can't trust her at all, and suspects that she'll one day be his undoing.
Our Choice: It's tricky, this one, in part because McCarthy doesn't specify an age. Our gut says that he's someone not far from The Counselor's age, possibly even a little younger (he's more hot-headed than his friend). We can't imagine Pitt or Bardem in this role, although it's likely that this is the one that's attracting the attention (it's the second largest male part in the film), although Renner's certainly feasible. Our first choice, however, would be Joaquin Phoenix, who'd bring his trademark unpredictability to the character, and given his post-comeback trend of working with top directors like Paul Thomas Anderson and James Gray, he might be attracted to a reunion with his "Gladiator" director. He's meant to be shooting Spike Jonze's next film shortly, but maybe scheduling could be worked out.
Other Options: Assuming we're on the right track with someone vaguely around Phoenix or Renner's age, there's a number of options on the table. One that sprung to mind immediately was Scott's "Matchstick Men" star Sam Rockwell, who could bring a nice nerviness to the character, and play well off Fassbender. Along not disimilar lines would be Adrien Brody, Colin Farrell or Oscar Isaac, the latter of which is hot at the moment thanks to working with the Coen Brothers, and was in "Body Of Lies" and "Robin Hood" for Scott. Tom Hardy would be an excellent choice, except that he's going to be shooting "Mad Max: Fury Road" for much of the rest of the year, and will therefore be unavailable. On the younger end of the scale would be Ryan Gosling, Ben Foster, James Franco or Justin Timberlake, while an offbeat, but fascinating choice would be rising star Rafe Spall, another member of the "Prometheus" crew. Going a touch older, Guy Pearce, Patrick Wilson or Eric Bana would all be interesting.
The Character: Probably the meatiest part in the script, Malkina is an incredibly attractive Argentinean woman who's hooked up with Reiner, although doesn't seem to show any particular affection towards him. She's also hyper-sexualised: arguably the most indelible scene in the script involves Reiner relating a time when his lover fucked his car in front of him. She's an almost Almodovarean femme fatale, with a mysterious, possibly traumatic past that she hints at, without ever revealing it. To say any more would probably give the game away.
Our Choice: While there's a host of actresses who could pull this one off, there's one that stuck out for us: "The Skin That I Live In" star Elena Anaya, who's already demonstrated that she can play complex, vengeful female roles with aplomb. She might not be as domineering as some possibilities, but we think she could do something special with the part.
Other Options: We're sure Penelope Cruz is high on executive wish-lists, but we don't quite see her in the part; Paz Vega might be a better fit, or possibly Catalina Sandino Moreno or Ana Claudia Talancon. As for American actresses who might be able to pass it off, there's Eva Mendes or Genesis Rodriguez ("Man On A Ledge"), but we're not yet convinced that either has the chops to pull off McCarthy's dialogue, although Mendes' role in "The Place Beyond The Pines" might change our minds. And if Scott isn't too attached to casting true-blue Hispanic actresses (we would argue it's kind of crucial), Eva Green or Marion Cotillard could both be excellent choices.
The Character: The Counselor's fiancee is sadly a little underwritten in the script. That being said, she's got some intriguing character traits, and a couple of great scenes, including the opening, and a heart-to-heart with Malkina over the phone. In terms of size and importance, Kelly Macdonald's part in "No Country For Old Men" is a good guide.
Our Choice: Laura is 36 in the script, but probably going to be cast younger, given the scale down to Fassbender. Given that the actress needs to be fearless, attractive, and to play well opposite Fassbender, the obvious choice for us is Jessica Chastain. Once she wraps Kathryn Bigelow's latest, she's got a perfect gap in her schedule before going to Broadway in the fall, and Scott would be a fool not to want her.
Other Options: Given the level of talent involved elsewhere, we imagine they'll probably be able to attract a better calibre of actress than the part necessarily demands. For instance, one of our first thoughts was Amy Adams, who's capable of much more than the aw-shucks types she tends to get given these days, although as with Phoenix, it depends if shooting on Spike Jonze's latest is done in time. Other possibilites include Michelle Williams, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Rachel Weisz, while if they go for slightly smaller, younger names, Kate Mara, Lizzy Caplan and Mary Elizabeth Winstead might all work.
The Character: The most enigmatic character in the script, one never quite knows what Westray's exact job is, but he's in the drug trade, and advises and aids The Counselor on his new sideline gig. Described as the same age as the protagonist, but feels older on the page.
Our Choice: It's very also possible that this is the part that Pitt, Bardem and maybe Renner have been linked to (although it could be Reiner too), and all could be interesting. But the one who came to mind for us was an actor who's proven a recent favorite of Ridley Scott: Mark Strong, whose performance in "Body Of Lies" led to his current omnipresence. The actor has the right kind of gravitas and look for the part (he was down to the last two, with Bardem, to play Anton Chigurh in 'No Country'), though with "Blood" and Bigelow's thriller on the calendar, scheduling could be an issue.
Other Options: Scott's most frequent collaborator of late, Russell Crowe, would fit in nicely here, but he's found himself in demand of late, with "Noah" and "Harker" competing to be his next after "Les Miserables." Idris Elba would also be a great fit, while names like Edward Norton, Demian Bichir, Michael Shannon, Don Cheadle, John Ortiz, John Hawkes or even Sean Penn could all be possible. We know some of y'all have read this: if you have, feel free to add your own picks below. Especially if your name is Ridley Scott.
Angelina Jolie to Join The Counselor?
April 10, 2012
There have been a number of high profile spec sales this year, and among them is Cormac McCarthy’s THE COUNSELOR,
which sold back in January to Nick Wechsler and Steve & Paula Mae
Schwartz. Despite the script’s complete lack of proper formatting
(screenwriting professors everywhere just found their jobs a little more
complicated…”No, but he’s Cormac McCarthy, he can do what he wants,
like Tarantino, please just stay with 3 acts…please.”), the script got
attention from some pretty huge names. Ridley Scott is directing,
Michael Fassbender is starring, and thesps like Brad Pitt, Natalie
Portman, Javier Bardem, and Jeremy Renner have been reportedly circling
roles. And the latest to get in the game? Angelina Jolie. Not to
mention that Fox is in discussions to distribute and co-finance.Pretty baller for a spec.
