While the rest of the movie-going universe debates the merits of Prometheus, Ridley Scott is busy putting the final touches on the Cormac McCarthy-scribed thriller The Counselor. The film stars Brad Pitt as a lawyer who gets involved with drug trafficking, and already sported the promising supporting cast of Michael the-best-thing-about-Prometheus Fassbender and McCarthy veteran Javier Bardem. According to Deadline Bloomington, another McCarthy veteran (remember All the Pretty Horses?), Penélope Cruz, has officially been added to the cast after being rumored for a role for some time.
No word on what character she’ll play, but despite any reservations audiences have had about Scott’s latest star-studded genre outing, this cast in the first script penned by really-freaking-good novelist Cormac McCarthy seems promising. Deadline notes that the film has been described as [sigh…] “No Country For Old Men on steroids,” which promises exactly the opposite of everything that made that Best Picture winner interesting. Principal photography for The Counselor begins this summer.
Cruz will also star in the newest Pedro Almodóvar film, Los amantes pasajeros (translated as The Standby Lovers), marking her fifth collaboration with the celebrated Spanish auteur (her first was Live Flesh, in which she co-starred with Bardem). The film’s plot reportedly depicts an encounter between two lovers on an airplane, a seemingly minimalist turn after last year’s batshit-but-brilliant The Skin I Live In. Knowing Almodóvar’s reputation, it seems likely that The Standby Lovers, which also begins filming this summer, will make a layover at next year’s Cannes. [Deadline Denver]
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