Jennifer Lopez is teaming up with another female director. The multi-hyphenate scored her biggest live-action opening of all-time and career-best reviews in Lorene Scafaria’s “Hustlers,” and is currently in post-production on Kat Coiro’s “Marry Me.” Now Deadline is reporting that Emmy winner Reed Morano is in talks to helm Lopez’s next pic, “The Godmother,” an STXfilms crime drama inspired by real-life Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco. Lopez has been attached to the project, which was originally in development at HBO, for nearly four years.
Known as the “Cocaine Godmother,” Blanco was an infamous cartel leader who streamlined the U.S. cocaine market in the ’70s and ’80s. Also called the “Black Widow,” it’s believed Blanco ordered over 200 murders during her reign. She “reportedly was worth more than $2 billion, and was a key figurehead in Miami’s bloody Cocaine Cowboy Wars,” Deadline details.
Regina Corrado and Terry Winter penned the script for “The Godmother,” and William Monahan is in talks to do rewrites. Lopez is among the project’s producers.
“Hustlers,” which grossed over $104 million domestically, is based on a true story and revisits how coworkers at a strip club banded together to steal tens of thousands of dollars from their Wall Street clients. Lopez will play a pop star who discovers her rocker fiancé cheated — right before she’s about to marry him onstage at Madison Square Garden — in “Marry Me.” She reacts by pulling a rando (Owen Wilson) out of the audience to wed instead.
Morano, who most recently helmed Blake Lively-starrer “The Rhythm Section,” took home an Emmy for her directing on “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Her packed slate includes “Sabaya,” a fact-based CIA thriller starring Zoe Saldana, and three Amazon series: “Pretty Things,” “The Power,” and “Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence.” “Pretty Things” is a thriller that tells the story of a grifter who befriends a wealthy influencer. An adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s novel of the same name, “The Power” is about a world where girls and women develop the power to harness electricity and shock people at will. “Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence” is based on the New York Magazine story detailing an abusive sex cult that rocked Sarah Lawrence College.
