Peter Berg has wanted to work with Mark Wahlberg for years. I remembered when I interviewed the filmmaker for “Friday Night Lights” in 2004 that he mentioned [before we went on the record] he was considering Wahlberg for the lead in “Splinter Cell”, the adaptation of the video game that he was attached to at the time (he’s not anymore). According to Berg, Wahlberg is both a great actor and also someone than can play an action hero, credibly.
He could be right.
Berg obviously thinks Wahlberg would make a good drug lord too – he’s cast him in his new film about international drug dealer Jon Roberts, whose rise and fall was chronicled in the documentary “Cocaine Cowboys.”
According to Variety, Film 44’s Berg and Sarah Aubrey will produce with Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson, both of whom are exec producers of HBO’s “Entourage.” Roberts’ rights are part of the package, and a writer will be set once the strike ends.
After returning from Vietnam as a decorated soldier, Roberts headed to Miami in the late ’70s and formed a relationship with the Medellin drug cartel, distributing cocaine worth billions of dollars. Wahlberg will play Roberts, who was turned in by a cohort and served a decade in jail for his crimes.
