Once Upon a Time, Walter Cronkite Arrived at an Island Overrun With Cocaine Dealers

For all the nation depended upon Walter Cronkite, who died earlier this summer, he was not above a vacation. One year in the Bahamas, he arrived on his yacht to an island owned by vacationers, and he was told by gunmen that he could not dock. His response, according to Variety?: “Do you know who I am?"

Evidently, they didn’t, and the gunmen—under the tutelage of Carlos Lehder, a powerful deputy to Pablo Escobar—fired shots into the air to get Cronkite to leave. Years later, as Lehder was on trial in the United States, Cronkite famously showed up to give testimony against him.

That history will be the basis of the new crime thriller Volcano, to be written by Michael Caleo, a former writer on The Sopranos. The movie will fuse Cronkite’s story with those of others affected by the cartel trade to tell one part of the epic Escobar story.

Volcano is in early development with no target release date yet.