Western Revenge film project THE REVENANT gets a new Director
The last thing I heard about this feature film adaptation of the action western novel, The Revenant, John Hilcoat (The Road) was attached to direct it and Christian Bale was in talks to take on the lead roll. That news was reported back in May of last year. It looks like some things have changed over the last year.
According to The Wrap Biutiful and Babel director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is now attached to direct the project. I'm not sure what happened to Hillcoat, he's not even mentioned in the article, but I guess things just didn't work out for one reason or another. Bale isn't mentioned in the new report either so I doubt that he's attached to the project, which would be a shame. I'm not the biggest fan of Inarritu's film work, so I'm not to thrilled that he's working on this project. Even before Hillcoat's involvement another version was in the works with Park Chan-Wook and Samuel L. Jackson.
The script for the film was written by Mark L. Smith, and the novel tells the awesome true story of a frontiersman named Hugh Glass, who is left for dead by his friends after a savage bear mauling. Despite taking wounds that should have killed him, Glass struggles through the wilderness to hunt down the men who left him to die.
Here is the full description for the book:
The Revenant tells a story of nearly unimaginable human endurance over 3,000 miles of uncharted American wilderness, spanning what is today the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska. Based on the real life of fur trapper Hugh Glass, The Revenant recounts the toll of envy and betrayal, and the power of obsession and vengeance. Punke's novel opens in 1823, when thirty-six-year-old Hugh Glass joins the Rocky Mountain Fur Co. on a venture into perilous, unexplored territory. After being savagely mauled by a grizzly bear, his nearly lifeless body is left in the care of two volunteers from the company-John Fitzgerald, a ruthless mercenary, and young Jim Bridger, the future "King of the Mountain Men." When Indians approach their camp, Fitzgerald and Bridger abandon Glass. Worse yet, they rob the wounded man of his weapons and tools-the very things that might have given him a chance on his own. Deserted, defenseless, and furious, Glass vows his survival. And his revenge.
I love a good western, we don't get many of them made these days, but this story has the potential to be a great movie!