Don Cheadle's been trying to make Marching Powder for some time now, but he's finally lined up a director for the job, in the shape of up-and-coming Brazilian director Jose Padilha.
The film's based on the book "Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine and South America's Strangest Jail", a memoir by Thomas McFadden, a British man convicted of drugs trafficking in Bolivia and sent to La Paz's San Pedro prison for six years, where he worked as a prison tour guide in a corrupt prison that was subject to so much bribery that it had its own capitalist system. Cheadle would play McFadden, and also produce - along with Brad Pitt's Plan B, among others.
Padilha was widely praised for his first film, Bus 174 and won the Golden Bear in Berlin this year for his next one, Elite Squad, (due out in August). However, he's also attached to direct undercover-drug-agent drama A Willing Patriot, so there's no word yet on where this will fit into his schedule. But if and when it goes ahead, it'll be Bolivia's greatest export since, er, (checks Wikipedia) natural gas, zinc, soya, iron ore and tin.