“Lost” is about to finish, but that does not mean that J.J. Abrams’ workload is getting any smaller (for one thing, he’s only had a faint involvement with the show since the first season). “Fringe” has improved massively of late and his new show “Undercovers” starts in the fall, at about the same time cameras will roll on his next directorial effort, the Spielberg-produced “Super 8,” after which he’ll move swiftly on to “Star Trek 2” in time for a 2012 release. And now, one of the many projects set up at his Bad Robot production company appears to be moving forward.
Abrams optioned the rights to the Wired magazine article “The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist,” by Joshua Davis, early last year, which follows a break in by a group of Italian thieves into the Antwerp Diamond Center, which resulted in a haul of as much as $100 million. Davis befriended the group’s ringleader, Leonardo Notarbartolo, who was residing in a Belgian prison, and, over interviews spanning six years, persuaded him to reveal the ingenious manner in which the theft was pulled off, despite the loot never being recovered.
It’s a pretty great story, and onethat seems well-suited to Phil Alden Robinson, who’s just signed on to pen the script. Best known for writing and directing “Field Of Dreams,” and currently writing “Sinatra” for Scorsese, Robinson was also behind the deeply pleasurable Robert Redford heist picture “Sneakers,” and, if he can pull this off as well as he did that film, we’re looking forward to this one. You can catch up on the original story over at Wired in the meantime.
