Chatter: Is Entourage Killing Pablo?

This season, HBO’s hit comedy Entourage played up Vincent Chase (above) struggling to make Medellin, a film bio of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. As episodes aired, word leaked that in real life, the Escobar biopic Killing Pablo, long trapped in Hollywood limbo, was headed for production. A case of art green-lighting life? Not according to Inquirer columnist Mark Bowden, author of Killing Pablo, the best-seller about Escobar. “They turned it into a joke,” he says of Entourage. “You run the risk of someone not taking it seriously when it’s lampooned.”

Bowden’s baby first ran into trouble in 2004, when its director, Joe Carnahan, tussled with Tom Cruise over Mission Impossible III, prompting Paramount to shelve Pablo. (Carnahan now is back on board; Christian Bale may star.) Bowden says there’s a good chance it will be made next year, but one thing is certain: “We won’t shoot the entire movie in Spanish, as they did on Entourage. That would be a disaster.”