John Travolta to play speedboat mogul Don Aronow in Speed Kills

John Travolta is going full-throttle with another biopic.

The People v. O.J. Simpson and Life and Death of John Gotti star is on board to portray the famed speedboat racer and designer Don Aronow in the film Speed Kills, EW has confirmed.

A lover of fast boats and fast living, Aronow was a champion racer who invented the sleek Cigarette boats that came to be favored by drug smugglers and featured on Miami Vice. He also designed an intercept vessel for the U.S. Customs Service and hobnobbed with the rich and powerful, but he met a violent end when he was shot to death in 1987, at the age of 59.

John Luessenhop (Texas Chainsaw 3D) is directing Speed Kills from a script he wrote with David Aaron Cohen (Friday Night Lights). Production is slated to start next month in Puerto Rico and Miami.

Travolta garnered an Emmy nomination for his performance as Robert Shapiro in People v. O.J. Simpson and will next be seen playing the title role in The Life and Death of John Gotti, due in theaters this year.

Deadline Hollywood first reported the news.