It’s a Toxic time for Luis Gerardo Méndez…

Paramount+ has given the greenlight to the film Toxicomania, hailing from the 40-year-old Mexican actor and producer.

The project is an adaptation of the popular Sonoro podcast of the same name. The podcast tells a fictionalized story based on the real-life events following the legalization of drugs in Mexico.

The project is the first from Méndez and Gerardo Gatica’s first-look deal with VIS, a division of Paramount, via the pair’s production company, Cine Vaquero.

Toxicomania is set in 1940s Mexico City and follows Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra (Méndez), a brilliant psychiatrist who led a short-lived revolution to legalize drug use in the country.

After facing humiliation from the international medical community and being challenged with a bet from his students, Viniegra presents his unorthodox idea to the then-president of México, General Lázaro Cárdenas. To everyone’s surprise, the president concedes to legalizing drugs, but not before Viniegra overcomes several challenges, including the morality of the era, armed groups, and political pressures.

Within 48 hours of its premiere in 2021, Toxicomania became the most successful Spanish-language fiction podcast hitting No. 1 in Mexico and Latin America and No. 2 in the U.S.

The film will be directed by Sebastián Hofmann and written by David Gaitán. Gatica and Méndez will serve as executive producers.