For two years, Brazilians have watched in fascination and horror as prosecutors unleashed a probe codenamed Operation Car Wash, targeting everyone from an ex-president to super-rich executives with allegations of mass embezzlement at state oil flagship company Petrobras.

Power, money, betrayal, fearless investigators -- what more could a scriptwriter want?

"Our objective is to make a blockbuster," says director Marcelo Antunez, whose movie, with the working title "Federal Police -- the law applies to all," is scheduled to open in May.

The story of Car Wash, or Lava Jato as it's called in Portuguese, is embedded in Brazilians' consciousness. Latest arrests or damning leaked testimony from high level witnesses frequently lead the news.

Antunez says he'll take that drama back to the beginning, when police first latched onto a ring of black market money dealers linked to a petrol station in Brasilia -- with little idea of where their probe would lead.