They’ve only just finished working together on boxing drama Southpaw, but Jake Gyllenhaal and Antoine Fuqua are ready to get back in the ring. Well, they’re ready to make another film as actor and director, respectively. The pair is now attached to **The Man Who Made It Snow.
No, you should not expect a charming family film about a stranger who comes to town and helps children enjoy Christmas by spreading the white stuff around. It’s actually the real life story of Max Mermelstein, a Jewish hotel engineer who helped Pablo Escobar turn his small-scale drug running operation into a billion-dollar business. So, er, hooray?
It’s a complex tale that Fuqua has developed from an earlier draft called Let It Snow, written by Brett Tabor and Michael Kingston. The whole thing is based on the Mermelstein’s best-selling autobiography. Fuqua is set to produce alongside Gyllenhaal and the rights are now – you saw this coming, surely? – for sale at the American Film Market, currently happening in Santa Monica, California.
Southpaw, meanwhile, is now punching its way through post-production, with Gyllenhaal starring as Billy "The Great" Hope, a left-handed pugilist who wins a big title but suffers a tragedy shortly after. With his life in tatters he must piece everything back together to regain the respect of his young daughter. There’s no word on when it’ll hit cinemas yet, but Gyllenhaal is in cinemas right now in Nightcrawler.