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Killing Pablo Biopic Moves Forward with Javier Bardem and Christian Bale

by Alex Billington
October 2, 2007
Source: Variety

The Yari Film Group is fast-tracking the film Killing Pablo, a biopic about the late Pablo Escobar. The incredibly talented Spanish actor Javier Bardem will star as Escobar and Christian Bale will star as Major Steve Jacoby, the Delta Force commander who led the hunt for Escobar. The film has been in development for nearly five years and is finally being fast-tracked. Smokin' Aces director Joe Carnahan is still attached to directed.

The film is based on Mark Bowden's novel "Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw". Escobar's rise as a leader of the drug cartel in Medellin, Colombia, began in the 1970s. After years of terrorizing police and political leaders, Escobar was targeted in 1992 by a coalition of Colombian police and military, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the CIA; he was killed the following year. The LA Times said of the book, "the story of how the U.S. Army Intelligence and Delta Force commandos helped Colombian police track down and kill Pablo Escobar is a compelling, almost Shakespearean tale."

I'm guessing this has to do with the impeding strike and studios scrambling to have films "ready" for the next year. Yari is hoping to start filming sometime around mid-2008, if the acting strike doesn't take place. Everything sounds pretty incredible about this project and I've got some high expectations. Although I'm not exactly a fan of Smokin' Aces nor Joe Carnahan, I'm willing to give him a second chance. The key here is Javier Bardem, who is one of the finest actors in the world, and of course the one-and-only Christian Bale. These two together should command a powerful film.

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