The Counselor

No longer requiring the aid of the Coen brothers to realize his grand literary ambitions of giving Javier Bardem funny wigs, Cormac McCarthy makes the leap to writing original screenplays with the Ridley Scott-directed The Counselor, due November 15. This first teaser, as bluntly tense as the bwaaaaaamps that outnumber actual lines of dialogue, mostly serves to establish the esteemed novelist’s first straight-to-screen universe—a universe that looks a lot like No Country For Old Men, actually, except here Bardem’s coiffure is patterned after Brian Grazer and everyone in general is much better-looking. Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, and Cameron Diaz are among those orbiting the world’s prettiest drug ring, while Michael Fassbender plays a Southwestern lawyer who finds himself drawn into its seductive milieu of fast motorcycles, sexy ladies in cheetah dresses, and even sexier actual cheetahs. Top that, books.