Non-fiction book gets big screen treatment…
Mike Fleming over Deadline hears that Chiwetel Ejiofor is being up to topline an adaptation of Rusty Young and Thomas McFadden’s non-fiction book ‘ Marching Powder.’
The Oscar nominated star would play McFadden, “a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia’s notorious San Pedro prison.” Intrigued by McFadden, Australian journalist Rusty Young joined one the illegal tours, and later bribed the guards to allow him to stay inside the prison, where he shared a cell with McFadden for the next three months. An instant friendship was formed and together they set out to chronicle life in the strange prison.
Young and McFadden’s book reveals how the inmates essentially ran the prison, with inmates expected to buy their cells from real estate agents. The prison had its own shops and restaurants. Women and children lived with their imprisoned family members, and corrupt politicians and drug lords lived in luxury apartments. Sections of San Pedro that echoed with the sound of children by day, housed some of Bolivia’s busiest cocaine laboratories by night.
‘Marching Powder’ is set up over at New Regency with Jerry Kalajian serving as executive producer.