Cormac McCarthy — one of the most widely acclaimed authors of our time — has sold his first spec script to the producers of The Road, Deadline reports. The No Country for Old Men author has penned The Counselor, a contemporary drama set in the southwest. More info and quotes after the jump.

According to Deadline:

The terrain of the script is reminiscent of the rough and tumble world depicted in No Country For Old Men. The protagonist in The Counselor is a respected lawyer who thinks he can dip a toe in to the drug business without getting sucked down. It is a bad decision and he tries his best to survive it and get out of a desperate situation.

As a major fan both the books and adaptations of No Country for Old Men and The Road — less so All The Pretty Horses — the prospects of seeing a screenplay written directly by McCarthy is intriguing, as from the sound of it The Counselor will explore many of the same themes as his past works

In fact, looking even deeper into this brief synopsis, there appear to be certain elements reminiscent of AMC’s award-winning drama Breaking Bad, which is promising in its own right. One of the producer’s on the project seems to confirm this assessment, as Deadline reports:

“The spec falls smack in the middle of what everyone responds to with Cormac’s novels,” Wechsler said. Steve Schwartz told me: “Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.”

This is certainly an exciting new project, and we’ll be sure to update you as more information on it becomes available. Are you interested in this?