Netflix Developing ‘Cocaine Hippos’, a Movie About What Happened to Drug Kingpin Pablo Escobar’s Zoo Animals

I don’t know about you, but when I see the words “cocaine” and “hippos” next to each other, I pay attention. And when the context is that a major company is developing a movie called Cocaine Hippos, I perk up even more. So Netflix certainly has my attention with its new upcoming comedy, which, oddly enough, is based on a true story.

In the 1980s, notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar demanded that a group of exotic animals be brought in to populate the grounds of his estate as part of his own private zoo. And since he was one of the richest men in the world at the time, what Escobar wanted, Escobar got. Giraffes, zebras, elephants, and, yep, four hippos were all brought in from across the globe, but when he was killed in the early 1990s, the Colombian government stepped in and moved many of those animals elsewhere. All except the hippos. Those were left behind (maybe because hippopotamuses are incredibly dangerous and aggressive?), and the four originals eventually proliferated, leaving dozens of them in a country in which they were never meant to live.

https://www.slashfilm.com/cocaine-hippos-jermaine-fowler/