I remember watching Billy Corben’s guiltily entertaining Cocaine Cowboys a year or so ago and thinking it would be so much better, and so much more honest, as a tricked-out, fact-based crime flick directed by, no joke, Michael Bay. It’s a narrative driven more by audacity than logic; there’s a more sober version of the story waiting to be told, but if you just want to get lost in the wretched excess of the South Florida drug trade… why not Bay?
Evidently, he was thinking the same thing. Variety is reporting that Bay and former producing partner Jerry Bruckheimer are angling to dramatize Corben’s documentaries (a second installment is due this year) on HBO. It’s unclear as to whether Bay would direct an episode or two (he’ll be busy with Transformers 2 very soon); in fact, it sounds like the series isn’t even a done deal just yet. There are no writers attached yet (Jerry Stahl would be perfect for this), but if Bruckheimer and Bay want this to happen, it’ll happen.
This won’t be the definitive tale of how the Colombians took over the Miami cocaine trade, but it has the potential to be a very seductive primer on the illicit industry that killed thousands whilst spawning the less lethal likes of Scarface, Miami Vice and Police Academy 5. There’s a more conscience-stricken version of this story, but that’s not what you want from a glorious libertine like Bay.
And in case you’re wondering, this has nothing to do with the Andy Warhol-produced, Ulli Lommel-directed piece of shit from 1979.