*UPDATE* Deadline now adds that Leonardo DiCaprio is being eyed for the role of the DEA agent in the film. Fox is looking to make good on all of the money they spent acquiring the rights to Winslow's novels, The Cartel and it's predecessor, The Power of the Dog.
Hollywood is never one to let a headline go to waste, and mere days after infamous drug kingpin El Chapo's escape from a Mexican prison, a feature film is already in the works. THR reports that Ridley Scott is on board to direct The Cartel, based on a recent book by author Don Winslow.
Penned by Shane Salerno, who adapted Winslow's book Savages into a pretty terrible Oliver Stone movie, they fictional story follows a drug kingpin heavily based on Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The author spent more than a decade researching El Chapo, including details on his first escape from prison back in 2001. Here's the synopsis for the novel, which also chronicles the friendship between a DEA agent and a cartel member:
It’s 2004. DEA agent Art Keller has been fighting the war on drugs for thirty years in a blood feud against Adán Barrera, the head of El Federación, the world’s most powerful cartel, and the man who brutally murdered Keller’s partner. Finally putting Barrera away cost Keller dearly—the woman he loves, the beliefs he cherishes, the life he wants to lead.
Then Barrera gets out, determined to rebuild the empire that Keller shattered. Unwilling to live in a world with Barrera in it, Keller goes on a ten-year odyssey to take him down. His obsession with justice—or is it revenge?—becomes a ruthless struggle that stretches from the cities, mountains, and deserts of Mexico to Washington’s corridors of power to the streets of Berlin and Barcelona.
Keller fights his personal battle against the devastated backdrop of Mexico’s drug war, a conflict of unprecedented scale and viciousness, as cartels vie for power and he comes to the final reckoning with Barrera—and himself—that he always knew must happen.
The Cartel is a story of revenge, honor, and sacrifice, as one man tries to face down the devil without losing his soul. It is the story of the war on drugs and the men—and women—who wage it.
Scott previously dealt with drug cartels in the star-studded (and weird awesome) film The Counselor, and he's currently set to release his sci-fi drama, The Martian, starring Matt Damon. No word on when The Cartel would begin shooting, but given Scott's penchant for dropping out of projects 20th Century Fox may want to move fast.
