Tru Blu: According to Variety, Benicio Del Toro is set to star alongside Denzel Washington in the Antoine Fuqua-directed Tru Blu, produced by Brian Grazer for Imagine Entertainment and Universal.

Steve Zaillian's script is a fact-based drama about how a lawman brought down the biggest drug kingpin in Harlem in the 1970s.

Production will begin in early fall, and U has set a release date of June 3, 2005.

Del Toro will play Detective Richie Roberts, who was matched against Frank Lucas, the mastermind of a major heroin scheme in which the drug was smuggled into the U.S. in the caskets of soldiers killed in Vietnam.

The film is based in part on a New York Magazine article by Mark Jacobson. The project's being shepherded by Jim Whitaker, who was just elevated to Imagine production prexy.