DEADLINE: Universal, Channing Tatum, Michael De Luca Tap ‘Bloodlines’
EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures has optioned the upcoming Melissa Del Bosque book Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty. Channing Tatum is attached to star, and Oscar-nominated Straight Outta Compton scribe Jonathan Herman will adapt. A rookie FBI agent named Scott Lawson is assigned to the border town of Laredo, Texas, where he writes reports about the drug war but doesn’t get to do much else. Until he’s asked to check out an anonymous tip that a horse sold for a record price at an Oklahoma auction house. The buyer: Miguel Trevino, one of the leaders of the Zetas, a brutal Mexican drug cartel. Teaming up with a more experienced agent named Alma Perez, the FBI agent discovers an opportunity to infiltrate a cartel that has taken to launder its drug money through American quarter horse racing. The book will be published September 12.
Michael De Luca will produce through Michael De Luca Productions alongside Tatum and his Free Association banner. Free Association’s Michael Parets will also produce.
Executive Vice President of Production Erik Baiers will oversee development for Universal. Elishia Holmes at De Luca Productions brought in and helped package the project, and will shepherd for De Luca. Tatum, who stars in the Steven Soderbergh-directed Logan Lucky and the upcoming Kingsman: The Golden Circle, is repped by UTA, Management 360 and Hansen, Jacobson. Herman is represented by UTA, Industry Entertainment and Lichter, Grossman. The author, a National Magazine Award-winning journalist, is repped by Sean Daily at Hotchkiss and Associates on behalf of Farley Chase at Chase Literary Agency.