Jake Gyllenhaal And Antoine Fuqua To Reunite For The Man Who Made It Snow

Their first collaboration, Southpaw, has yet to be released, but Jake Gyllenhaal and director Antoine Fuqua aren’t waiting too long for another opportunity to work together. While it may conjure images of a certain Christmas-time icon, The Man Who Made It Snow isn’t about Santa. Rather, the biopic revolves around Max Mermelstein, a “Jewish hotel engineer who transformed Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel from a small mom-and-pop drug organization into a billion-dollar enterprise.”

Based on Mermelstein’s own account of the events which took place, the film will chart his rise from a street kid to one of the most influential men in the Columbian drug cartel. Tackling the adaptation are Michael Kingston and Brett Tabor, who will together craft the screenplay from Mermelstein’s best-selling autobiography.

While it’s not explicitly stated, it’s assumed that Gyllenhaal will portray the hotel engineer-turned-cartel chief. The actor is accruing a reputation for venturing into edgier material that offers him meatier material to sink his teeth into. This announcement comes on the back of Gyllenhaal’s much-lauded performance in Nightcrawler and what sounds like another winning turn as a struggling boxer in Fuqua’s Southpaw. Their second project in the space of a year definitely hints towards the start of a cracking new cinematic team-up.

Today’s news also outlined that both Gyllenhaal and Fuqua will produce the pic, along with IM Global, whom the director’s Fuqua Films banner has recently negotiated a first-look deal. IM Global will fully-finance the film, and market it at this week’s American Film Market, an annual event during which hundreds of indie pic deals are made.

We’ll keep you posted with any new developments on The Man Who Made It Snow, but in the meantime, check out the synopsis for Mermelstein’s autobiography and let us know if you’ll be picking up a copy.

This is the true story of “the only American alive ever admitted to the inner circle of the Colombian cocaine cartel.” Max Mermelstein is in the Federal Witness Protection Program for turning against the cartel and his role as the key witness against the Colombian drug kingpins.