Pablo Escobar may not be the most well known name on this side of the Atlantic, but before his death he was a Colombian drug lord, nicknamed The World’s Greatest Outlaw, so you can be pretty sure that a biopic about him would be something special.
There’s a great story there to tell, and it looks like Brad Furman, director of this year’s well received The Lincoln Lawyer, will be the one to tell them, currently in talks to direct the project, CinemaBlend report.
I first really came to know the name Pablo Escobar because of the TV series Entourage, when the lead characters tried to get their passion project made, a film about Escobar, Medellín. Medellín, Colombia’s second city, was once the home of Escobar’s drug cartel, and was then known as one of the world’s most violent cities. You take just a brief look at Escobar’s biography, and you can be sure that a biopic on him would be something brilliant to watch.
This real-life take on the drug lord’s life is being produced by Scott Steindorff, who worked with Furman on The Lincoln Lawyer, and it sounds like he’s already envisioning big things for this film. Talking to THR, he said that the film will be a cross between a war film and The Godfather. He wants to show the violence in the man’s life, but take a look at the man himself and show his was not just a life of black and white:
“This is the Latino Godfather… We’re showing the story of his family, the structure of his enterprise, his rise—the man had the largest criminal organization in the world. In the end, it was a war between Colombia and one man.”
So far, so good. The script is to be written by Matt Aldrich, who recently sold his script, Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses, (what a title) which has Matt Damon attached to possibly both star in and direct. In the past few years, there has been talk of two other Escobar projects, including one which Oliver Stone was developing, but neither one has been completed yet, and it sounds like with Furman close to securing his directing role on this project, Escobar will finally have a big screen story told of him. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
