Ask any fan of last year’s Hustlers, and they’ll tell you Jennifer Lopez was robbed of a Best Supporting Actress nomination by The Academy. Fortunately, that snub hasn’t derailed her desire to star in more crime dramas. Lopez has signed on to lead The Godmother, where she will play Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco.
The Handmaid’s Tale helmer Reed Morano is in talks to direct the film, while The Departed screenwriter William Monahan is taking a new pass on the script originally penned by Terry Winter and Regina Corrado.
The film follows the highs and lows of Blanco, who outsmarted and out-hustled the men around her to rise from an impoverished childhood in Colombia to become one of the world’s biggest drug lords. She was worth more than $2 billion, and was a key figurehead in Miami’s bloody Cocaine Cowboy Wars.
This feels like the perfect follow up to Hustlers for Lopez, where she showed a darker side many hadn’t seen before. The Godmother also has the true crime fix many are craving nowadays, and if Morano – who has won multiple awards for directing multiple The Handmaid’s Tale episodes – does indeed direct the film, that’s another huge plus.
This will actually be the second collaboration for Morano and screenwriter Monahan, who previously worked together on Sabaya, the upcoming film about U.S. Special Forces killing a top ISIS leader to strike a serious blow against the terrorist organisation. Zoe Saldana will star.
Morano also recently directed The Rhythm Section, but by all accounts that movie was taken out of her control and messed with by producers. Hopefully that will not be the case here. The Godmother has a great collection of creative talent. Hopefully it can harness that and become a great film in the contemporary crime genre.
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