Josh Brolin Ascends to Lead the CARTEL After Sean Penn’s Departure

This past June we learned that Sean Penn was dropping out of “The Three Stooges” and “Cartel” to spend more time with his family.  Today we’ve learned that Josh Brolin will take his place for “Cartel.”  I like Penn a lot, but I’m now far more interested in this since Brolin has been doing great work these past couple of years and at this point I’m more excited about a Brolin performance than a Penn performance.   To learn more about “Cartel” and Brolin’s role, hit the jump

Variety tells us that Brolin will play “a man who is on a mission to protect his son after his wife is brutally murdered in the gritty world of Mexican drug cartels.”  The film is also inspired by the 1993 Italian film  “La scorta” which “followed four cops’ struggle to guard a special prosecutor trying to bring mob bosses to justice.”  The film is written by Peter Craig, who recently penned Ben Affleck’s “The Town” with director Asger Leth making his dramatic feature directing debut after his 2006 documentary “Ghosts of Cite Soleil.”

The film will begin shooting in January in Mexico City.  Meanwhile, you can look forward to seeing Brolin in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps” on April 23rd, 2010 and “Jonah Hex” on June 18th, 2010.