Mark Wahlberg spent years and years trying to get the story of boxer Micky Ward turned into a movie. Finally, the actor turned to his friend and long time collaborator David O. Russell and they made The Fighter, one of the best films of last year and one of ten competing for the Best Picture award at this year's Academy Awards. Obviously the partnership turned out to be an unbelievable success and now it looks as though they might be ready to repeat the formula again.
The Playlist recently spoke with Russell at the ACE Eddie Awards and revealed that, in addition to taking on a number of other projects, he has begun thinking about a movie called Cocaine Cowboys, the story of the illegal drug trade in Miami during the 70s and 80s and the man behind it all: Jon Roberts. Wahlberg has been developing the project, which is based on the 2006 Billy Corben documentary, since at least 2008, when it was said the actor and Leonardo DiCaprio in the leads. When I spoke to Wahlberg back in July, Peter Berg was attached as the director and the script, written by Evan Wright, was undergoing re-writes. Other projects on the horizon for Russell include Uncharted, 2 Guns, and The Silver Linings Playbook.
I think it might be time to stop asking David O. Russell what he's doing next. Every time someone asks him that question he has a new project to talk about. Eventually he's going to have 30 movies on his schedule, his head will explode and he'll get to make none of them. That's just not fair.
