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Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Cormac McCarthy Sells His First Spec Script

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday January 17, 2012 @ 4:44pm PSTTags: Cormac McCarthy, Nick Wechsler, Paula Mae Schwartz, Steve Schwartz, The Counselor
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: While Cormac McCarthy’s novels have been turned into No Country For Old Men, The Road and All the Pretty Horses, he’s left the film adaptations to others. McCarthy has surprised everybody by writing his first spec screenplay. Nick Wechsler, Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, the producing trio behind the adaptation of McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winner The Road, have just closed a deal to take The Counselor off the table with a preemptive acquisition.

The terrain of the script is reminiscent of the rough and tumble world depicted in No Country For Old Men. The protagonist in The Counselor is a respected lawyer who thinks he can dip a toe in to the drug business without getting sucked down. It is a bad decision and he tries his best to survive it and get out of a desperate situation. While McCarthy’s ICM agents Binky Urban and Ron Bernstein were expecting McCarthy to deliver his next novel, he instead surprised them with the spec script before returning to the book. The producers moved quickly and spent their own money to buy it in a sizable deal. They tell me they will go looking for a filmmaker as they talk to financiers.

“The spec falls smack in the middle of what everyone responds to with Cormac’s novels,” Wechsler said. Steve Schwartz told me: “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.” The script is contemporary, and set in the Southwest.

Wechsler and the Schwartz’s are prepping The Host, the adaptation of Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer, which shoots February 13 in Baton Rouge with Saoirse Ronan starring and Andrew Niccol directing. They are producing the film with Meyer. The Schwartz’s also produced Cogan’s Trade with Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner and were exec producers of The Tree of Life, while Wechsler’s in production in the Jonathan Glazer-directed Under the Skin, and wrapped the Steven Soderbergh-directed Magic Mike.

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Open Road To Acquire U.S. Distribution On Stephenie Meyer’s ‘The Host’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday June 20, 2011 @ 11:00am PDTTags: Andrew Niccol, Bill Johnson, Clive Owen, Jason Statham, Jim Seibel, Nick Wechsler, Open Road, Paula Mae Schwartz, Rena Ronson, Robert De Niro, Saoirse Ronan, Stephenie Meyer, Steve Schwartz, The Host, Tom Ortenberg, Twilight Saga
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Open Road, the upstart distribution company formed by theater chains AMC and Regal, is making its second big acquisition. Tom Ortenberg’s company is acquiring domestic distribution rights to The Host, the Andrew Niccol-directed adaptation of Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer’s novel. I’m told that the there were at least three other distributors trying to get this and that the deal will be a seven-figure minimum guarantee, a healthy P&A commitment, and gross for participants that include the author.

Saoirse Ronan is set to play heroine Melanie Stryder, one of the last humans putting up a fight against an alien species called Souls, parasites that invade human bodies, fuse to each person’s consciousness and systematically erase their personalities. Melanie is captured by the aliens and implanted by a Soul called Wanderer. While Wanderer’s goal is to get Melanie to give up the remaining pockets of humans, the alien finds Melanie to be unique in her unwillingness to surrender her consciousness. Wanderer is so overwhelmed by Melanie’s memories and feelings that she is driven to reconnect with Melanie’s old life, which includes falling for Melanie’s boyfriend. The result is a complex, romantic and emotional human/alien love triangle. Nick Wechsler, Meyer, Paula Mae Schwartz and Steve Schwartz are producing. Inferno’s Marc Butan, Jim Seibel and Bill Johnson are exec producers and Roger Schwartz is co-producer. Read More »

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Cannes: Andrew Niccol To Direct Saoirse Ronan In Stephenie Meyer’s ‘The Host’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday May 12, 2011 @ 1:20pm PDTTags: Andrew Dominik, Andrew Niccol, Bill Johnson, Brad Pitt, Cannes, Chuck Russell, Clive Owen, Jason Statham, Jim Seibel, Joe Carnahan, Liam Hemsworth, Liam Neeson, Marc Butan, Nick Wechsler, Paula Mae Schwartz, Robert De Niro, Roger Schwartz, Saoirse Ronan, Steve Schwartz
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Andrew Niccol has been set as the director of The Host, directing his scripted adaptation of the bestselling novel by Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer. The project, which is being shopped here at Cannes by Inferno Entertainment and producers Nick Wechsler and Steve Schwartz and Paula Mae Schwartz, will star Saoirse Ronan.

After resisting overtures to sell the book, Meyer finally entrusted it with the producers, who gave her strong creative input. She chose Niccol originally because she was a fan of his film Gattaca and script for The Truman Show. While Niccol adapted the book into the current script, he exited to make the film Now, which he has completed with Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy starring. The producers went down the road with several directors, but talks with Niccol to return started heating up in recent weeks. Ronan ramped up interest in the film when she was set to star.

Ronan will play Melanie Stryder, one of the last humans putting up a fight against an alien species called Souls. These parasites invade human bodies, fuse to each person’s consciousness and systematically erase their personalities. The story follows Melanie as she is captured by the aliens and implanted by a Soul called Wanderer, something of a legend because of all of the “hosts” she has attached to on numerous planets. Wanderer’s goal is to get Melanie to give up the remaining pockets of humans, but instead the alien finds Melanie to be unique in her unwillingness to surrender her consciousness. Wanderer is so overwhelmed by Melanie’s memories and feelings that she is driven to reconnect with Melanie’s old life, which includes falling for Melanie’s boyfriend. The result is a complex, romantic and emotional human/alien love triangle. Read More »

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‘Twilight Saga’ Author Stephenie Meyer’s ‘The Host’ Lands Saoirse Ronan To Star

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday May 3, 2011 @ 10:45am PDTTags: Andrew Niccol, Bill Johnson, Inferno, Jim Seibel, Marc Butan, Nick Wechsler, Paula Mae Schwartz, Roger Schwartz, Saoirse Ronan, Stephenie Meyer, Steve Schwartz, The Host
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Saoirse Ronan has been set to star in The Host, the screen adaptation of the bestselling novel by Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer. Scripted by Andrew Niccol, the film figures to be one of the hot titles when Inferno launches sales at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival next week. Niccol, who was originally set to direct, might resurface as the filmmaker.

Ronan, the Oscar-nominated star of Atonement, The Lovely Bones and most recently Hanna, will play Melanie Stryder, one of the last humans putting up a fight against an alien species called Souls. These parasites invade human bodies, fuse to each person’s consciousness and systematically erase their personalities. Melanie is captured by the aliens and implanted by a Soul called Wanderer, something of a legend because of all of the “hosts” she has attached to on numerous planets. Wanderer’s goal is to get Melanie to give up the remaining pockets of humans, but instead the alien finds Melanie to be unique in her unwillingness to surrender her consciousness. Wanderer is so overwhelmed by Melanie’s memories and feelings, the alien is driven to reconnect with Melanie’s old life.

The concept is more of a visual challenge than Meyer’s Twilight Saga books, but one thing they plan is for Ronan to play both Melanie and Wanderer. Meyer’s book has an enormous fan base, and the author had long resisted offers to sell it. She finally made a deal two years ago with producers Nick Wechsler and Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, who’d done the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road together. They deliberately developed the script outside the studio system, and invited the author to be very hands on in the adaptation. Read More »

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