Former Dealer Claims He’s Talked To Leonardo DiCaprio & Mark Wahlberg About Acting In & Producing The Film
Reuters is reporting that Nick Cassavetes is gearing up to direct a film about Rick Ross, the famed Miami based drug dealer that also inspired the name of the hip hop artist you know and love.
The proposed film won’t focus on Ross’ time behind bars but will zero in on his early days as a crack cocaine dealer in Miami during the 1980s. Apparently, Ross was a major player slinging up to 100 kg of the stuff per day and he claims that he was supplied by Contras who were fighting the Nicaraguan government at the time; yep, those same Contras that were funded by officials in Ronald Reagan’s administration.
“My brother was a mercenary. He worked in Central America training the Contras, so in a way the story is personal to me,” Cassavetes said. “The fact that our government may have been complicit in destroying an entire community of people makes the story personal for everyone.” He adds that while he hates comparing films, the expects the Ross pic to have a similar scope to Steven Soderbergh‘s “Traffic.” Lofty ambitions, indeed.
According to Ross, a script is finished and there are hopes that the film will start lensing this year though that depends on if it can find financing. The former dealer claims to have already spoken directly with Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg about acting in or producing the film but no one has come on board just yet.
As for Cassavetes, he seems to be obsessed with beefing up his image as a “hard” dude perhaps to balance out his resumé of films that includes “The Notebook,” “My Sister’s Keeper” and “John Q.” He’s currently in post-production on the drug addiction drama “Yellow,” has been circling a biopic of John Gotti and recently had a pretty embarrassing arc on “Entourage” as a renegade director who pushes Vince into gambling his pretty-boy face doing his own stunts. We get it. You’re a tough guy.
We’re curious to see if this one comes together, but it frankly sounds like a half dozen other drug trafficking films so this one will have to be something special to snag our attention.