Fox and Ridley Scott are teaming up to adapt The Cartel, Don Winslow's much-heralded novel that has parallels to the real-life escape of drug lord El Chapo.
Scott will direct the movie and produce with his Scott Free Films president Michael Schaefer. Shane Salerno will write the script and also produce via his shingle, Story Factory.
The movie deal went down Wednesday night after intense interest from the major studios and producers. Execs and observers had been eyeing the project not just for the ripped-from-the-headlines similarities but also for the acclaimed reviews of the book that are praising it as a south-of-the-border version of The Godfather. Steve Asbell will oversee the project for the studio.
The deal also includes Fox's pick up of the movie rights to Winslow's novel, The Power of the Dog, which is Cartel's precursor.
Winslow couldn’t have timed the publication of the book any better.
The July 18 escape of notorious Sinoloa drug cartel boss Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán from a Mexican prison came less than a month after his novel, which fictionalizes Guzman’s story, went on sale.
Cartel tells the intertwined story of Art Keller and Adan Berrera, friends whose paths diverged when Keller went to work for DEA and Berrera joined the Sonora drug cartel. Roughly covering the years from 2004-2014, its a follow up to his 2006 bestseller, The Power of the Dog, which traced the early years of the drug war.
Winslow did extensive research on El Chapo for the novel, spending more than a decade learning about him. Cartel features a fictional version of Guzman’s first prison escape in 2001, when he supposedly hid in a laundry cart to get out.
Since the escape, Winslow has been appearing on news programs and blogging about the escape.
Scott is prepping his latest, The Martian, which stars Matt Damon, for a fall release. He previously took on the cartel culture with 2013's The Counselor.
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