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Carnahan blasts ‘Escobar’ poachers

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Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

A news announcement sent far and wide to entertainment outlets Tuesday confirming that the Yari Film Group is “fast-tracking” the biopic “Killing Pablo” was a shot across the bow fired after the filmmakers learned there are similar “Escobar” projects in the works.

Joe Carnahan, of “Narc” acclaim and the box-office dud “Smokin’ Aces,” is directing and adapting journalist Mark Bowden’s 2001 best-selling book, “Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw.”

“We got wind that we had poachers on the horizon,” Carnahan said in a phone interview Tuesday. “I think competition is good for the soul. If it is really exceptional material you wouldn’t hear a peep out of me. If they had written something commendable, great! Good! But this feels like ‘A strike is looming, so let’s jam this piece of material into production.’”

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He did not identify who was developing the competing project but said he believed it was based on a book written by Escobar’s brother.

Carnahan has spent years researching his own Escobar project. The project was initially set up at Paramount/ DreamWorks, but they put it in turnaround.

“In fairness to them, it’s tough to do,” the director said. “Because of the level of violence and because of the inherent brutality, the story doesn’t lend itself to pat studio treatment without showing dozens of deaths.”

He noted that at one point in Escobar’s reign of terror, six Colombian police officers a day were being murdered.

While the Escobar story is essentially a chase film, Carnahan noted that it is also timely and topical. Just as U.S. forces scour the caves and crevices of Afghanistan looking for terrorist Osama bin Laden, Colombian authorities had searched long and hard to find drug kingpin Escobar.

“I think he was truly the last great gangster of the 20th Century,” Carnahan said of Escobar. “Here’s a guy who was No. 7 on the Forbes list of the richest individuals in the world. Less than two years later, he and one of his bodyguards are running through a lower-middle class neighborhood across rooftops trying to escape.”

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Carnahan said he thinks he has given about as even-handed depiction of Escobar as he could and noted that even todaymany people in Colombia look upon Escobar as a hero. ‘His mother still holds weekly mass that draws more than 1,000 people,” the director noted.

The main players are not finalized, but Spanish film star Javier Bardem (“Before Night Falls”) is expected to play the murderous Escobar, and Christian Bale is in talks to play the Delta Force commander who led the hunt for Escobar, an infamous drug trafficker. Carnahan said the project was jump-started after they heard that another film about Escobar might be in the works.

Carnahan is scheduled to begin filming “White Jazz” starring George Clooney on Jan. 14. That film is based on the James Ellroy novel.

The production budget for “Killing Pablo” will be $60 million, Carnahan added. For now, the plan is to begin filming next summer, but if there is a strike by Hollywood writers, then the start of principle photography will be delayed.

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