Don Winslow’s crime novel The Cartel has benefitted from two very important boosts – one, it’s fantastic, a layered, gripping story that blends fact and fiction about a compelling subject, and two, the subject himself, drug cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán escaped from prison again a few days ago. Hollywood has been quick to jump on the rights, with 20th Century Fox offering a rich deal that includes Ridley Scott attached to direct the eventual film{
The book’s plot follows Art Keller and Adan Barrera, friends whose life paths diverged when the former started work with the DEA and the latter joined the Sonora drug cartel, and charts their linked experiences, through 2004-2014. It’s a follow-up to his 2006 tome The Power Of The Dog. And for this new book, Winslow researched El Chapo extensively for more than a decade, which makes it even more attractive to the filmmakers, and it won’t surprise anyone to lean that the deal also includes rights to the first book along with The Cartel.
Winslow’s book agent also just happens to be Shane Salerno, whose Story Factory company helped hammer out the deal. He’s on board to write the script and produce, and according to Deadline, Fox is now also reaching out to Leonardo DiCaprio, who had been trying to secure the book for his Appian Way company, to play one of the lead roles.
Scott, who tackled the drug war previously in The Counselor, is in post-production on sci-fi thriller The Martian, due to land here on October 2.