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Hot off his Oscar win for Milk, Sean Penn is in talks with Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment to star in the film Cartel. The film started as an American remake of the 1993 Italian film La Scorta before evolving into an action film for Penn.  Reading the plot of La Scorta it now appears to have very little in common with Cartel which started in development at Imagine Entertainment.

In Cartel, Penn would play Ed Marker. Marker’s wife is murdered in the brutal underworld of Mexican cartels. After the murder of his wife his goal is to protect his son from a similar fate. Cartel has a script by Peter Craig and will be directed by Asgar Leth who previously won a DGA award for his documentary Ghosts of Cite Soleil. Cartel will be his dramatic feature debut.

Executive producers are Robert Stone and Webster Stone who produced Gone in Sixty Seconds. Brian Grazer is producing. They want to start shooting the film this summer but there’s no word about who will play Penn’s wife and son.

Cartel isn’t the only film that Sean Penn is looking at post Oscar. He’s also in talks to star with Naomi Watts in Fair Game a film about CIA agent Valerie Plame and the Bush administrations destruction of her career. Doug Limon is set to direct.

Penn is as always moving on to new challenges. Do you think these sound like good post Oscar projects for Penn?