Director Todd Field has what it takes to bring ‘Blood Meridian’ to life: now all we need are the people acting in front of the camera to be capable of matching Field’s discipline and talent.

We live in a cautious era.  As the capital required to finance a motion picture has skyrocketed, the age of the auteur has vanished, and movies are now made by committee.  Creative and original visions languish on shelves, while movie adaptations of works from other disciplines, like comics or TV shows or books, are quickly rushed through the production process.  Because of this, appealing to a franchise’s pre-existing fan base has become of primary importance to many executives, and vocal fanboys on the Internet have gained near unimaginable power.

Blood Meridian is the revisionist Western that Cormac McCarthy wrote after winning a MacArthur Genius Grant.  Heralded as one of the best novels of the 20th century, the long and storied production of a film adaptation of the work has been accelerated by the recent success of another McCarthy adaptation, No Country For Old Men.  The subject matter of Blood Meridian, this masterpiece of historical fiction, is undeniably brutal: it details the atrocities of the Glanton Gang as they massacre Native Americans along the U.S. and Mexico borderlands for scalp money.  Descriptions of their looting, raping, pillaging, and violence are stomach-churning, and it will require a talented cast and crew, capable of the expressing the most subtle degrees of nuance, to truly present the story in a way that accurately captures the correct tone.

To that extent, it is good news that Todd Field has recently taken over as the main creative force for the project, in the roles of both writer and director.  Field is perhaps best known as the writer and director of In The Bedroom, the 2001 drama that received multiple Academy Award nominations (including two for Field) for its sensitive portrayal of a family pushed to the limits through tragedy; it is a stunning meditation on justice.  Field has what it takes to bring Blood Meridian to life: now all we need are the people acting in front of the camera to be capable of matching Field’s discipline and talent.

Having read and loved Blood Meridian, and having followed its cinematic adaptation with some degree of fervor, I have spent a lot of time contemplating the cast for this project.  Who has what it takes to fill these amazing roles?  After much time and effort, I believe that I have assembled the ideal team to handle the strenuous psychological demands and tolls that a project like this will inflict upon them.  If any of you know the casting director of Blood Meridian, please share this with them, entirely free of charge; seeing my cast bring this story to the silver screen is the highest reward I can think of.  Without further ado, I submit to you the objectively perfect cast for Blood Meridian:

Judge Holden:  Eddie Murphy (Caucasian makeup; bicep enhancement prosthetics; shoe lifts; skin makeup that appears to remove his eyebrows, eyelashes, head hair, and even ear hair; walks on stilts so as to reach the appropriate height of 7 feet and 14 inches)

The Kid:  Eddie Murphy (Caucasian makeup; stubble wig; bicep enhancement prosthetics; saturation of Oil of Olay helping him to reverse his age until he looks approximately 16 years old)

Glanton:  Eddie Murphy (Caucasian makeup; beard wig; bicep enhancement prosthetics; pants with upside-down U-shaped frame so that he always walks bow-legged)

Reverend Green: Eddie Murphy (Caucasian makeup; moustache wig; cassock)

Norbit:  Eddie Murphy (Afro wig; glasses; bicep reduction prosthetics)

Toadvine:  Eddie Murphy  (Caucasian makeup; black and ropy locks wig; camera trick used to make his head look narrower;  H and T branding on forehead prosthetic; ear removal via green screen)

Naked Gileño Infant Swung By Heels and Smashed Against Stones: Marlon Wayans (Gileño makeup; hat with propeller on top; use the same special effect they used in Little Man, except now put his head on top of a Gileño baby’s body)

White John Jackson:  Eddie Murphy (Caucasian makeup; prosthetic snarl; stubble wig)

Black John Jackson:  Jack Johnson (African-American makeup; prosthetic snarl; stubble wig)

Small Goat That Gets Shot:  Eddie Murphy (Prosthetic horns; prosthetic fur; prosthetic legs where arms should be; squib that explodes when he’s shot; prosthetic tail; “Vertigo”-type camera effect where they shoot him from far away so that you make him look like a small goat, as opposed to one of normal size; character speaks with voice somewhat inspired by that of “Donkey” in Shrek)

The Mennonite:  Eddie Murphy (Caucasian makeup; bicep reduction prosthetic; really long beard wig; calm demeanor prosthetic)

Comanche #3:  Eddie Murphy (Native American makeup; bicep enhancement prosthetic; quadricep enhancement prosthetic; long black hair wig; war paint makeup)

Enormous Whore:  Eddie Murphy