Zeta-Jones leads A+E Mipcom movie slate

Catherine Zeta-Jones in Cocaine Godmother

US cablenet operator A+E Networks has unveiled a slate of TV movie commissions and will bring Catherine Zeta-Jones, who stars in one of the films, to Mipcom next month to promote them.

Zeta-Jones (Chicago, Traffic) is starring in Cocaine Godmother, the true story of 1970s Miami drug lord Griselda Blanco, who was nicknamed The Black Widow. The movie will premiere on US cablenet Lifetime in 2018.

Lifetime is also preparing to air Oscar Pistorious: Blade Runner Killer from Swirl Films and Thinkfactory Media in November.

The drama tells the story of the Paralympic sprinting champion who shot and killed his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkap, in their South Africa home on Valentine’s Day 2013.

A project on the disappearance of Robert Durst’s wife Kathie is also in the works, 20 years after she went missing. Real-estate heir Durst, who is awaiting trial for the murder of his neighbour, is known for featuring in the HBO true crime series The Jinx. The Lost Wife of Robert Durst will dramatise the earlier disappearance of his wife.

Other projects on the slate include Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland, told through the eyes of the late pop star’s trusted bodyguards; Menendez: Blood Brothers, on the murders of entertainment execs Jose Menendez and his wife Kitty at the hands of their sons Lyle and Erik in 1989; and coming-of-age film Story of a Girl, based on the novel of the same name by Sara Zarr.