After having the distinct honor of being the star of a Mob Museum exhibit, Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is set to further permeate pop culture with a TV series about his life in the works. Besides the series, there's also a planned El Chapo biopic from actress Kate del Castillo, who exchanged texts with the kingpin and who helped set up the infamous interview between him and Sean Penn.
The drama series, #Cartel, is being developed at the History Channel, president and general manager Jana Bennett announced. In a statement, History said #Cartel would examine how social media is crucial to drug cartels for recruiting and fighting against rival cartels, hence the hashtag in the series title:
#Cartel will be written and produced by Chris Brancato, who has experience telling the story of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar for the Netflix original series Narcos
"The true story of El Chapo, fraught with murder, drugs, corruption and celebrity, has been and continues to be one of the most disturbing and fascinating of the past decade," Bennett said. "Chris [Brancato] is the perfect person to bring this slice of modern history to the screen."
In the same statement Brancato, the Narcos showrunner who left after season one, said he was "thrilled" about #Cartel adding, "The show is a metaphor for the lives we present on the internet, the secret selves we reveal in supposedly private communication and the risks of not-so-humble-bragging on social media."