I just got off the phone with cool Miami-based film producer, Alfred Spellman, in an attempt to get some concrete information about Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay adapting his and director Billy Corben’s acclaimed ‘06 documentary, Cocaine Cowboys, into a new dramatic series for HBO and Warner Bros. You see, last night Variety published a very loose news item announcing that such an A-list project could be in the works with said talent. Spellman didn’t reveal much, but I did get him to admit he was siked. Go me. As he should be. His company, Rakontur, has Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin’ with the Godmother due in June from Magnolia, and, as we previously reported, a feature film adaptation of CC is in the works from director Peter Berg with Mark Wahlberg set to star (and Leonardo DiCaprio involved in some capacity).
The mind races thinking about Bay and Bruckheimer being hands on with an ’80s period, Vice City-set HBO series filled with drugs, hot (hot, and hot) cars, South Beach trim, Escobar offspring, and gunplay. Alongside Showtime’s Weeds and AMC’s Breaking Bad, this series would complete TV’s drug diet. Variety reports that no writer is currently attached, but adds that Bay and Bruckheimer have been circling the project for quite a while. More on this if and when it develops…
Discuss: Does this sound like the bread winner HBO is currently missing? Does a gritty antithesis/’00s bookend to Miami Vice sound appealing?
May 6th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Cocaine Cowboys 3: Welcome to San Diego University…
May 6th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
If its half as good as weeds… I will watch it religiously.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
@ monkeymafia
orly? ;)
May 6th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
They need to just finish off Deadwood and Carnivale properly.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
wasnt mark whalberg doing a film version of cocain cowboys ?
May 6th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Fuck that! Michael Bay?? When did HBO sank so low..
HBO must take on The Song of Ice and Fire.. What’s up with that deal?
And the Preacher..
And of course, finish off Deadwood and Carnivale (which will never happen of course)..
May 6th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
You mean the same Preacher that Mark Steven Johnson is suppoed to do for HBO?
That shit-dick is going to ruin that comic like he did Ghost Rider.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I could never get into Deadwood. All of the tough guys on that show seemed like pansies to me when they should have made Tony Soprano look like Chef Boyardee.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Deadwood is great. That show is such a dirty, un-hollywood look into the wild west.
Stop being a cunt, Hunter ;)
May 6th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
@ CA
See, it still felt “Hollywood” to me, in terms of male posturing, with a lot of “cunts” thrown in because it aired on HBO. I liked Carradine’s Wild Bill, but that was a short run. I’d say The Proposition was a “dirtier, un-hollywood look into the wild west,” albeit set in the outback. Deadwood was in no way definitive of the Wild West like the Sopranos to the mafia, as some DW fans claim. But it’s dead, so who cares. Happy joy. ;)
May 6th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
The Proposition was great and I agree. But I think Deadwood did well with its setting.
For the most part they did keep the language as is, especially during that era. Well I didn’t mean it defined what the Wild West was like. But they did do their best to keep the general “education” of the area about the same.
It’s probably why I hated Rome. That felt more like Rome 90210 to me than anything else.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
If it’s on Par with Breaking Bad, I’ll be addicted!
May 7th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Great! Another Hollywood movie glamorizing drugs!!!!
Yep, how totally clever.