El Chapo Series Coming to TV With the Help of 'Narcos' Showrunner

The kingpin is coming to the small screen.

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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:

“The series would follow kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman’s rise to power. It’s a look inside the stranger-than-fiction world of drug cartels who use social media to maintain their image, recruit new members and threaten rivals. Unlike drug lords of decades past, El Chapo has fan followings, with relationships in the entertainment and music industry that stretch past the Mexican border and into the United States. “#Cartel” is a story of power, money, sex and the human cost of the drug wars like none ever seen on television.”

#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."  

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