Wahlberg Confirms Plans To Star In The Raven, Gives Details About Cocaine Cowboys

Earlier this morning Latino Review posted a story that Mark Wahlberg was in talks to produce and star in a feature-length adaptation of the Ricardo de Montreuil short film The Raven which blew up online back in April. Just my luck, I caught the story just as I was leaving for a press junket for The Other Guys, where I would have the chance to talk to Wahlberg not only about The Raven, but his other future projects as well.

It turns out that Latino Review's info was accurate, however, Wahlberg is not in talks to adapt the short as a feature but rather has been developing it for about a month now. The actor told me that the plan is for him to both serve as producer and star in the film as Chris Black, a man living in a futuristic Los Angeles who wakes up one morning to find that the police have tracked him down with plans to arrest him. What we don't know is that Black is not just an ordinary criminal on the run for the law. "It will be a very, very different kind of superhero movie," said Wahlberg. "Certainly not me running around with a cape on or some suit. The idea that they came up with for the feature is spectacular." Set to be directed by de Montreuil, the actor expects the script to be completed in six to eight weeks and will then start shooting immediately.

Wahlberg also gave us an update on the long in-development project Cocaine Cowboys, based on the 2006 Billy Corben documentary. Wahlberg has been rumored for the project since 2008, playing the role of Jon Roberts, the famed drug trafficker who worked out of Miami for the Colombian Medellin cartel. Peter Berg is currently attached to direct and the script, written by Generation Kill's Evan Wright, is currently undergoing rewrites. While he is excited for the project, Wahlberg says that they have "a couple of other things that we are developing and hope to shoot at least one or two more things before that. But nothing's locked in yet."

Wahlberg can next be seen starring alongside Will Ferrell in The Other Guys, due out August 6, and as famed boxer "Irish" Mickey Ward in David O. Russell's The Fighter on December 10. In the meantime, check out de Montreuil's short film The Raven below.