After years of Hollywood trying to bring his story to the big screen, there will finally be a Pablo Escobar biopic.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brad Furman, director of this spring's "The Lincoln Lawyer," will helm a film about the infamous Colombian drug lord, which will be written by Matt Aldrich. In getting the movie off the ground, Furman will do what both Oliver Stone and Joe Carnahan failed to do with their aspiring versions.
"This is the Latino Godfather,” the film's producer, Scott Steindorff, told THR. “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.”
Escobar was the world's top drug trafficker, owning over 80% of the cocaine trade at one point. Using violence provided by organized crime groups whose allegiances he bought, an operating a number of cartels in Colombian that became to be known as the Medellin Cartel, Escobar was ranked the 7th richest man in the world by Forbes in 1989 with $25 billion.
Having ordered the murder of presidential candidates and judges, as well as the bombing of a flight that killed 107 people, Escobar avoided extradition to the United States -- thanks to his own campaign of terror. Through bribery and costumes, he escaped his own private prison, La Catedral, in 1992 after turning himself in to Colombian authorities.
His son starred in a documentary tracing his exile and work to reconcile his father's heinous crimes with his desire to live an honest life.
With the United States ramping up pressure and training soldiers to search for Escobar and take him down, he was finally found, and killed, in December 1993.
For more on the film, click over to The Hollywood Reporter.