The tale of the battling Pablo Escobar flicks is still going strong, but despite the bad news that Javier Bardem has officially dropped out of Joe Carnahan's Killing Pablo, all is not lost for his true-life crime tale. CHUD recently received an email from the man himself, and Carnahan tells them, "I spent the last week in Colombia with Edgar Ramirez talking 'Pablo' and he has every intention of portraying Escobar and I couldn't be more fired up by the prospect. He's coming at it with boundless enthusiasm, conviction to the role and the understanding that he's going to have to pack on anywhere from 35 to 40lbs." Seems a shame to cover up all that 'handsome', but what can you do?This is all quite a change from last February, when Collider had reported that Ramirez was the front-runner to star in Antoine Fuqua's version of the life of the drug baron. So, I can only assume that the casting switch won't be helping matters in the ongoing feud between the two projects. The only other cast that we were aware of was Christian Bale signing to play Major Steve Jacoby, but who knows what could happen between now and whenever Carnahan finally starts production.
Carnahan's film is based on Mark Bowden's book, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. The story claims to be the true tale of how Escobar was assassinated and his Medellín cocaine cartel was dismantled by US special forces. Of course no good conspiracy theory is complete without a few extra players, so some of the blame was also placed on the Colombian military and a vigilante gang controlled by a competing cartel.
Stay tuned to Cinematical for the official word, and sound off below on Ramirez picking up where Bardem left off...
1. Pablo Escobar was born in 1949, the son of a peasant farmer and a school teacher. When he was two the family moved to Envigado, a suburb of the city of Medellin, Colombia.
A young Escobar was growing up in a turbulent time in Colombia's violent history. His criminal life began as a teenage car thief in the streets of Medellín, Colombia but he would one day become one of the richest men in the world. It has been reported that early in his criminal career he allegedly stole headstones from graveyards and re-sold them in other villages of Antioquia as well as selling them to smugglers from Panama.
As a small-time hustler in Medellin he was always busy trying to make money by running petty street scams, selling contraband cigarettes and fake lottery tickets.
By the 1960's he was working as a small-time pot dealer but with America's newfound obsession with cocaine he eventually moved into the trafficking business and would soon begin building an enormous drug empire as well as making himself the most powerful man in Colombia.
To learn more about the transformation of Medellin, Colombia visit: http://www.medellintraveler.com
Posted at 8:24PM on Aug 30th 2008 by Medellin Traveler