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...

You know if there were a lot more blood-shed involved in the two competing biopics about drug baron Pablo Escobar; it probably would have tickled him to see two Hollywood filmmakers fight over his life story. But I can't help but wonder what he would think about the casting choices. In an interview with Collider, Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez confirmed that his is the forerunner to play Pablo Escobar in Antoine Fuqua's film, Escobar. Ramirez made his North American debut in the Tony Scott flick, Domino. Luckily he's been landing better roles ever since and next up will be a role in Soderbergh's Che Guevara pic, Guerrilla.

At first, Ramirez played it cool about the Escobar casting and told Collider, "It would be a great challenge and it would be a great responsibility to history-of contemporary history-in my region. We're talking about a character who really definitely changed the face of a whole country and the face of a whole region, and a character filled with contractions....so it would be quite a challenge and something very interesting to get involved with." But, off the record, Ramirez commented that it was almost a done deal that he would star as one of the leaders of the Medellin Cartel.

By now we are probably all aware of the 'feud' between the two films surrounding the life of Pablo Escobar. So while Joe Carnahan has been pretty vocal about his disapproval, we haven't heard much from Fuqua's camp. Maybe he just thought it was best to let the films speak for themselves. If Ramirez has landed the role, then it would certainly look like Escobar is going to be the first film to cross the finish line. Escobar is scheduled to hit theaters in fall 2009.

In the ongoing battle of Pablo Escobar biopics, I think Smokin' Joe Carnahan finally has managed to one-up Oliver Stone in the war between the two (possibly three) Pablo Escobar films currently in development. Carnahan recently updated his personal blog with news that he had received a letter from Juan Pablo Escobar, the only son of the infamous drug baron. It would appear that Carnahan has managed to impress the family member, since according to Joe, "He offered me unlimited access to his family's history, including photos, films, letters and the like". Carnahan's film is based on the book by Mark Bowden, and focuses on the "cocaine cartel dismantled by US Special Forces and intelligence, the Colombian military, and a vigilante gang controlled by the Cali cartel".

The whole thing started back in October when news of Stone's film first began to hit, and that they were aiming for a pre-strike production date (which as we all know never materialized, but it probably did nothing to help the bad blood between the productions).Considering that Carnahan wasn't exactly happy with having to compete with Oliver Stone and Antoine Fuqua's Escobar, getting the seal of approval from Escobar's only heir could be what Carnahan needs to trump Stone's project; which is based on the book written by Pablo's brother, called Mi Hermano Pablo. Carnahan has been struggling for years to get his Escobar flick into production so you can see where he is coming from when he shouted "no fair" when multiple projects were being rushed into production. Carnahan has already scored Javier Bardem (though Bardem may bow out because of scheduling conflicts) and Christian Bale for his film which automatically gives it another advantage over the yet-to-be-cast Escobar. Killing Pablo is set for release in 2009 ... if Joe ever gets around to filming it.

[via Filmstalker]

Back in the day, Mel Gibson was the 'it' guy. The tough loved him for roles like Mad Max Rockatansky, while the soft went gaga for his dramatic plights in flicks like Forever Young. It sort of seems like another lifetime ago. Now, having thrown some ultra-violent directorial gigs under his belt, along with a troubling night with booze and a sharp drunken tongue, it seems Gibson is heading back to what made him a star. Hello Magazine reports that his rumored acting project, Under and Alone, will begin filming next year.

Gibson will star in the film, which is the true story of Billy Queen -- an undercover ATF agent who infiltrated the Mongols Motorcycle Club in the late '90s. He became a "full-patch member," nabbed the title of treasurer, and was able to gather enough evidence for the arrests of many Mongols in 2000. The project is based on the agent's book, and has been adapted by Sugarland's Daniel Barnz and Ned Zeman, along with Gregor Jordan (Ned Kelly) -- the latter of whom will co-direct with Antoine Fuqua (Shooter).

There has been no word of upcoming directorial gigs for Gibson, but he does have another acting project cooking up called Sam and George -- the story of friends who reunite after one (Gibson) has served 20 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Is this the return of actor Mel? Is he going to take a long break from his violent filmmaking? Will audiences forget his past turmoil and love actor Mel once again?

[via Moviehole]

Life used to be much easier. I remember a time when iconic figures would only have two biopics being made about them. Now it's a crazier era, in which a person may have any number of films being made about him or her. Poor Columbus; poor Capote; poor Harvey Milk. I guess none of them were good enough for three biopics. Not like Salvador Dalí, who I already wrote about today (and he seems to have a lot more than three in the works), or Pablo Escobar. According to the New York Times, there's more than just the Joe Carnahan and the Oliver Stone/Antoine Fuqua versions of the drug kingpin's story. Joining them at the American Film Market is another pic, which is to be helmed by Resident Evil: Apocalypse director Alexander Witt. Though he only has one credit to his name as the big man in charge, and it's something as crappy as RE:A, Witt is a true veteran of the industry, having worked as second unit director and DP for many of Jan De Bont and Ridley Scott's films (including this week's new release, American Gangster). Plus, he shot footage for Casino Royale, The Bourne Identity and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. He's even worked for Spielberg and Altman. So, he has to have learned something. Right?

Witt's Escobar project is simply titled Escobar, and is based on original research rather than a book. It has been scripted by Richard Rionda Del Castro (Sid Furie's Partners in Action) and Greg Mellott (Sid Furie's Direct Action, The Rage and American Soldiers), so it's probably fair to assume this one will be more of a low-budget-action-type depiction. Still, Del Castro claims the film has a budget between $22 million and $28 million; he also says his is further into production than the others. We'll see -- let the race to theaters, and our drug-dealer-loving hearts, begin!

You aren't anybody unless you're famous enough for rival biopics. I hope you all celebrated the holiday yesterday by watching both Gérard Depardieu and Georges Corraface in their respective, rival Columbus films. Coming in the future, we may also get competing movies about Harvey Milk, Philip K. Dick, Sammy Davis, Jr. and now Pablo Escobar. We've long followed news regarding Joe Carnahan's movie about the Colombian drug lord, who will be played there by Javier Bardem, but now Variety reports another Escobar pic in the works. This one will be produced by Oliver Stone, directed by Antoine Fuqua and is simply titled Escobar. It's based on the book "Mi Hermano Pablo", written by the cocaine king's brother, Roberto Escobar Gaviria, who worked as accountant and confidant to Pablo.

So, this looks like it will be more of a life-encompassing biopic. It also appears to be going into production ahead of Carnahan's film, Killing Pablo, since Carnahan is first working on White Jazz while Escobar is fully financed and ready to begin shooting in Colombia and Puerto Rico in early 2008. All that needs finishing is the script rewrite, which is being done by David McKenna, who already wrote a bit about Escobar in his screenplay for Blow (he was played by Cliff Curtis). Variety doesn't mention who Stone and Fuqua have or are casting in the title role of their film, which means it may not be secure. I'm sure some people would like to see Adrian Grenier play the part, as he does via his character Vinnie Chase on the show Entourage, but that would actually be a terrible idea. Personally, I'd like them to go back to Curtis, but for a long-term biopic they'll likely want someone younger, as well as someone more familiar to audiences.

I also wish that Stone was directing this himself -- even if he really annoyed the heck out of me recently -- because he seems to know the territory. And because he thanked "Ari Gold" (Jeremy Piven's character on Entourage) when talking to Variety about the project. But he should do just fine overseeing Fuqua's direction, a job he's sharing with former Malcolm in the Middle older brother Justin Berfield, Jason Felts and James Reach.

There's an appeal to the sniper's art -- the snick and snap of each hand-pulled bolt, the blue-steel poetry of it. Each cycle of the firing mechanism is as brief and constrained as a haiku, one that says the same thing over and over again: Die. Based on the novel by thriller writer and film critic Stephen Hunter (The Day Before Midnight, Pale Horse Coming), Shooter is an attempt to capture the essence of the sniper -- that most existential yet intimate of murders, where you shoot from a distance, killing one by one. Mark Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger; when we meet Bob Lee, he's with Marine Force Recon, loaned out to shady suit-clad types in the name of some greater good. When Bob Lee's spotter Donnie (Lane Garrison) pulls a picture out of his fiancée out of his spotter's notebook, we sigh -- might as well be a boat called the Live Forever -- but we kind of accept that scenes like this are a necessary preamble in a certain kind of thriller, the overture before the curtain goes up.

Fade to black, and a title card tells us it is 36 months later, and Bob Lee is living in the woods with a tragic past, and an even more tragic ponytail. Men are looking for Bob Lee -- men with work to do. Led by Danny Glover, they explain that intercepted communiqués indicate someone will try to kill the President from a mile out with a single shot during scheduled appearances in our nation's capital, or Baltimore or Philadelphia. Not many people in the world could make that shot -- but Bob Lee could, so they want him to tell them where to look for the would-be assassin. He's an expert. He's a patriot. He's a patsy.

Swiftly and aggressively entertaining at its best moments, thoroughly (aggressively) boring at its worst, the new action flick Shooter feels like it fell right out of the 1980s. Jettison the handful of offhand references to current events (like 9/11 and other violent incursions) and you're looking at a screenplay that Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis would have climbed all over. When director Antoine Fuqua keeps his lenses focused firmly on the action, Shooter is quite a bit of tough, gritty fun. It's just that all the endless story deviations and lethargic plot contortions start to grate on the nerves after a little while.

Based on the novel Point of Impact (by Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Stephen Hunter), Shooter is a blend of The Fugitive and In the Line of Fire -- with one amusingly outrageous portion of Cliffhanger thrown in because, hey, blood looks really cool when it's splattered all over virgin snow. Our hero is Bob Lee Swagger (as played by Mark Wahlberg and yes I said Swagger), the undisputed world's champ when it comes to killing enemies by way of military sniper rifle. Think you've got mad Halo skills when you find that sniper gun? Please. Bob Lee Swagger can hit a tin can from over a mile away -- and pet his dog at the same time. So when a shadowy government man (Danny Glover) shows up at Swagger's isolated cabin with his evil henchman (Elias Koteas) in tow, you'd think Bob Lee would know better than to accept their proposal -- to "fake" a presidential assassination in order to help "prevent" a presidential assassination -- but he doesn't.

Italian tire-maker Pirelli must have a whole lot of money and very little space in which to store it, or something, because obscene salaries are the only possible explanation for John Malkovich and Antoine Fuqua's collaboration on the hideously bad, tire-selling short, The Call. In the film, Malkovich plays a priest who is called to perform an exorcism on ... a car. Which, obviously, is possessed by Naomi Campbell, who has black wings and appears to have scaled up her weapon choice rather dramatically from the cell phone she was (allegedly) wielding last week. While I will confess to chuckling when Evil Naomi rid the car of Malkovich's holy water by turning on the windshield wipers, the revelation that all she really wanted was better tires is so silly that it's not even worth mocking.

But, you know, far be it for me to judge if the thing sells tires or not. Maybe if I had a car, I'd suddenly be desperate to buy something from Pirelli. Because, really, who doesn't need tires that ward off evil?

[via Filmmaker Blog]

Mmm...odds and ends.

• According to none other than the nephew of Miles Davis himself (Yeah, nephews aren't necessarily that close, I know. So sue me - I'm trying to lend this thing a little credence.), Sony is currently "working on" a movie about Uncle Miles' life. Mr. Nephew claims that the studio is accepting scripts as we speak, and suggested that Antoine Fuqua might be directing Don Cheadle in the film. Whether Sony has even heard of this alleged project, however, has not yet been revealed.

• A travel agency in Taiwan is offering package holidays to Fort Macleod in Southern Alberta, Canada, the location that stood in for Wyoming in a little picture called Brokeback Mountain. (Needless to say, the advertising materials probably mention the movie once or twice.) Now, don't worry - people of any and all sexual orientations are welcome on the trip. That said, if you're gay and can prove it (disappointingly, there no indication of what that would entail), you get $200 off the regular price. Score!

• Remember the huge warehouse fire last fall that destroyed much of the history of Aardman Animation? Well, the company has finally receive their insurance money (over half a million pounds in total), and how the payment breaks down is fascinating. The ORIGINAL MODELS OF WALLACE AND GROMIT (that's history right there, kids), for example, were worth just £6000 pounds together, with Wallace coming in at £4000, twice the value of his trusty companion. Are these people mad? Why, Gromit's brain alone is far more valuable than everything Wallace is and owns. I mean, have insurers never seen the movies?