October 31, 2014 - 12:45 AMT
“The Godmother” Catherine Zeta-Jones cocaine drama rounds out cast

Catherine Zeta-Jones' Colombian cocaine drama The Godmother is taking shape, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Jon Bernthal (Fury, The Wolf of Wall Street), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), Oscar Jaenada (Cantifnflas, The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) and Mehdi Dehbi (A Most Wanted Man) have joined the cast of the biopic, which stars Zeta-Jones as infamous drug lord Griselda Blanco.

In another boost for the project, Sierra/Affinity has come aboard to handle international sales and will introduce Godmother to international distributors at the upcoming American Film Market.

Godmother, directed by Eva Sorhaug, will chronicle Blanco's rise to a major position of power within the Colombian drug cartel in the 1970s and 1980s as cocaine started flooding into the United States. Referred to as history's first female drug lord, Blanco played a key role in the notorious Miami drug wars before being arrested in 1986 in California.

She served 18 years in prison before being released in 2004 and deported back to Colombia. She was murdered in 2012 in Medellin, Colombia.

Daniela Cretu is producing Godmother under her First Born Films Banner, with Nicholas Pileggi executive producing alongside Meyer, Sierra's Marc Schaberg and Kelly McCormick. A spring start date is planned.

It isn't Zeta-Jones' first turn in a movie about the drug trade. In 2000, she starred in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, which earned more than $200 million at the global box office.

Photo: Chris Pizzello/AP