Power exec producer Randall Emmett and Lone Survivor exec producer George Furla will mount a TV series based on the exploits of “Freeway” Rick Ross. The drama will be based on Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography. Emmett/Furla/Oasis Co-CEOs Randall Emmett and George Furla will be exec producers alongside Lost Lane Entertainment’s Zachery Ty Bryan. The subject, who sold his life rights, will produce with Antonio Moore and Neil Harrington.
The book details how Ross built a crack-cocaine empire in California, earning millions per day in the mid 1980s. Between 1982 and 1989, federal prosecutors estimated, Ross bought and resold several tons of cocaine. In 1980 dollars, his gross earnings were said to be in excess of $900 million — with a profit of nearly $300 million. Converted roughly to present-day dollars: $2.5 billion and $850 million, respectively. As his distribution empire grew to include forty-two cities, the price he paid per kilo of powder cocaine dropped from as much as $60,000 to as low as $10,000.
Ross would go on to be California’s “Public Enemy Number One,” and was a major part of the Iran-Contra scandal that rocked the nation with allegations the government was complicit in the crack market that ravaged urban America with allegations that rose all the way to the office of President Reagan.
Aside from the Starz series Power, EFO is currently in production on Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and in pre-production on the Joe Carnahan picture Boss Level, with Frank Grillo and Mel Gibson. The company is developing BMF at Starz with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson executive producing.
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