"Tru Blu" Production News

April 2, 2004 - Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington and his "Training Day" director Antoine Fuqua are set to reunite for Universal Pictures' and Imagine Entertainment's "Tru Blu." Academy Award-winner Brian Grazer ("A Beautiful Mind") is onboard to produce the dramatic film. "Schindler's List's" screenwriter Steven Zaillian wrote the screenplay.

According to a press release issued by Universal Pictures, "Tru Blu" is based in part on a New York Magazine article by Mark Jacobson.

The film follows the real-life story Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas. Lucas emerged from a impoverished childhood in the South to become a power player in the heroin smuggling trade during the early 1970s. Lucas would smuggle the drug in the caskets of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam. In an interesting turn of events, Detective Richie Roberts caught Lucas who then went on to help the police nail those who profited from his drug smuggling scheme.

Source: Universal Pictures