Sofia Vergara To Play Colombian Drug Boss ‘Black Widow’ Griselda Blanco In New Netflix Series

Actress Sofia Vergara is gearing up to play the Black Widow, but not the Marvel superhero.

The "Modern Family" actress has bagged a six-episode limited series titled "Griselda" in which she will be playing Griselda Blanco, the Colombian drug boss who was popularly known as the Black Widow. The actress will also serve as the executive producer of the Netflix project, according to Hollywood Reporter.

She said that Blanco was a "larger-than-life character whose ruthless, but ingenious tactics allowed her to rule a billion-dollar empire years before many of the most notorious male kingpins we know so much about." The Colombia-born actress, who had been working on the project with Luis Balaguer for eight years under their Latin World Entertainment banner before having Netflix onboard, is thrilled to have found the perfect partners, including the streaming giant, to help her bring "this story of her life to the screen.”

Writer and executive producer Eric Newman, who served as showrunner for five seasons of "Narcos" and "Narcos: Mexico," is also attached to the series. He said that Blanco has long been a passion project for the actress and he is grateful that she and her partners have chosen him to help her tell that story. He called Vergara a "brilliant talent," and is positive that her passion along with a "fantastic story" from Doug (Miro) and Ingrid (Escajeda), and Andrés Baiz as the director, means they have a "very exciting series to share" with viewers.

Miro, Baiz and Carlo Bernard, who are all part of the "Narcos" creative team, will also executive produce alongside Balaguer. According to Netflix, the show is about the "ambitious Colombian businesswoman," who set up one of the "most profitable cartels in history." She has also been described as a devoted mom.

The new series has a heavy involvement of the "Narcos" team, but Netflix stressed that it is not a spinoff from its popular drug cartel drama, which premiered in 2015. In fact, Blanco was never a featured character on "Narcos" despite her proximity to Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and the Medellín cartel.

In the 1980s, Blanco, who also went by the names La Madrina and the Cocaine Godmother apart from the Black Widow, was one of the most powerful cocaine traffickers and an important person in Miami’s drug wars.

The Netflix series is not the first one to tell her story. In the 2017 film "Cocaine Godmother," she was played by Oscar winner Catherine Zeta-Jones. Actress-singer Jennifer Lopez is also developing a project on her titled "The Godmother." Deadline had earlier reported that Primetime Emmy-winning director Reed Morano was negotiating to direct "The Godmother" in which Lopez plays Blanco.