EXCLUSIVE: Ridley Scott is in talks to direct the Cormac McCarthy-scripted drama The Counselor. Scott has several films he’s considering, but there is a strong possibility this could be his next film and his followup to Prometheus, the 3D space film which Fox releases this summer. I guess this is what happens when one of the premiere living authors like the Pulitzer Prize-winning McCarthy takes a break from his novel writing to turn out his first spec screenplay. McCarthy, whose novels have been turned into the films No Country For Old Men, The Road and All the Pretty Horses, did just that in late December, and sold the script to The Road producing team of Nick Wechsler and Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz.

Scott had been mulling several options, including an historical epic about Gertrude Bell that The Constant Gardener scribe Jeffrey Caine is currently rewriting, and Child 44 at Summit Entertainment. But Scott has been talking directly to McCarthy and it’s looking likely that he and his Scott Free Entertainment banner will come aboard the film and join Wechsler and the Schwartz’s as producers. Those producers control all rights, and haven’t committed the film to any studio, but I can see their phone sheets filling up by tomorrow morning.