The buzz for director Joe Carnahan‘s (Smokin’ Aces, Narc) latest film, the Alaska-based man vs. wilderness thriller The Grey, has been building steadily for some time now (and we just posted our review). Add to that Carnahan’s track record of dropping in and out of projects, and it should come as no surprise that questions are already being asked regarding Carnahan’s future projects.

Now it seems answers to those questions are coming via an interview Carnahan gave to The Playlist. According to Carnahan, his next two projects will most likely be Killing Pablo and White Jazz, two films both based on books, and both dealing with the violence and crime – two themes which Carnahan is intimately familiar with. Both are also projects that Carnahan has been rumored to be involved with before, though as Umbra and Mission: Impossible III have proven, Carnahan‘s connection to any film is often tenuous.

Luckily, Carnahan seems pretty confident about these projects. According to him, Killing Pablo, based on Mark Bowden‘s (Black Hawk Down) nonfiction novel about the military mission to kill drug lord Pablo Escobar, is in the casting stage after finally receiving a green light. The role of Pablo, originally to be filled by Javier Barden, is now rumored to be played by Edgar Ramirez (Che, meanwhile, is based on a James Elroy (L.A. Confidential) novel about a police detective/mob enforcer in the 1950s who ends up being used as bait in an FBI sting. Carnahan says that White Jazz might come first purely out of convenience “because it’s L.A. and I could do it and sleep in my own bed at night,” but otherwise offered up no information related to its level of preparedness. In the meantime, read yesterday’s story about a possible Narc sequel.

So, given Carnahan’s previous work and the buzz for The Grey, which of these projects are you most excited for?