Big things are a-brewing. Big things. First, famed author (and my all-time personal favorite) Cormac McCarthy, author of novels-turned-movies No Country for Old Men, The Road, and All the Pretty Horses, sold his first movie script, The Counselor, two weeks ago to Nick Wechsler and Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, the production team behind The Road. This, in itself, is big news. Aside from writing a plethora of novels perfect for the big screen, most notably seen in the Coen Brother’s adaption of No Country for Old Men, the pulitzer-winning novelist is also widely known as one of the best living authors. His take on the Southwest and Mexico, both past and present, leaves his readers (and soon to be viewers) with a masculine, violence-ridden, dark portrait of the area.

Apparently, McCarthy will be bringing this same approach to his first ever script, The Counselor, which is set in the present-day Southwest and will center around a lawyer who gets involved in the Mexican drug trade and must suffer the consequences. Sounds amazing, especially considering McCarthy’s somewhat accurately eerie detailing of the Mexican drug war.

But what makes this even more amazing (as if that could actually happen)? Well, apparently the film will also have two female leads as well. This is great news, just great. As many McCarthy novels that I have read, the closet I’ve ever gotten to a female lead was a Mexican prostitute turned love-story catalyst in his Cities of the Plain. Here’s hoping (or rather knowing) that McCarthy brought his same knack for writing multi-dimensional male characters to that of their female counterpart.

So, just two short weeks after selling this sure-to-be-excellent script, Deadline is reporting that The Counselor has secured a director, a very big director. How big? Ridley Scott big. That’s right, the man behind Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator has signed on to direct McCarthy’s venture. This is truly exciting news! Just the best. This has Oscar-gold written all over it. Could it really be Christmas in February?! Because it certainly feels that way!