Film production is the mythical dollar-imbibed landscape which most authors either shy away from or find intolerably meddlesome, but when your adapted novels have scooped more in way of awards than James Cameron’s bribe-squad, it’s probably high time you used that gold-dust to tease an original screenplay into being made.

This is why Cormac Mcarthy, author of such Hollywood-adapted novels as No Country for Old Men and ‘The Road’, has surprised his agent by submitting not the first draft of his next novel, but a screenplay.  Currently named ‘The Counsellor’, the story takes place in the contemporary Southwest U.S, and differs from the writer’s previous works by featuring two female lead characters.

Given the creative bankruptcy of feature-filmmaking in Hollywood of late, perhaps McCarthy will be able to give television production a run, once ‘The Counsellor’ bites the dust. Alan Ball did the very same thing upon the success of American Beauty, and, thanks to his moxy and HBO’s cashish, we got Six Feet Under. Enough said.

Keep your eyes peeled for future developments on The Counsellor. The likelihood is that McCarthy will have no problems shopping it around the salivating suits of tinsel town.