Joe Carnahan’s pre-strike dance card just got filled up. He’s starting on White Jazz in December, and then he’ll be moving into Killing Pablo, one of the films he’s been trying to get made for years now. The Yari Film Group is fast tracking the picture, and there are some stars lined up, namely Christian Bale and Javier Bardem.
Killing Pablo is based on the book by Mark Bowden, author of Blackhawk Down; it tells the story Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the efforts to bring him down, which resulted in a fierce rooftop gunfight where the guy went down with a number of bullets in him before catching one in the dome. Now that’s a fucking cinematic way to die. Carnahan has been developing this script for about five years now; there’s no telling if this is another Entourage-inspired green light (remember when the WB made an Aquaman pilot?).
Bardem will play Escobar while Bale will be Major Steve Jacoby, an American special forces type who helped killasize Pablo. I am only guessing, not having read the book, but is Jacoby a grim and serious man whose main focus is the mission? Let me know if this is Bale typecasting himself yet again.
Killing Pablo should hit screens in 2009.