By Sarah Sluis
Today's project-to-watch is J.J. Abrams' pickup of a Wired story on an unsolved jewel heist. The alleged mastermind of the crime, Leonardo Notarbartolo, served ten years based on circumstantial evidence.
Just released from prison this week, he spilled his story to writer Joshua Davis (a CAA-represented freelancer who executive produces films based on his articles).
The play-by-play has all the twists and tricks that make for a fantastic heist film. In fact, one of the ploys used in Ocean's 11 actually took place. The team recreated a vault that they used for dry runs, practicing disabling the different devices (who knew hairspray could disable a heat sensor?) and enabling them to carry out their work in the dark. The whole thing comes undone when Notarbartolo's partner goes crazy and has a panic attack after two days of being awake, strewing evidence they had intended to burn later--although the photograph of the garbage left behind doesn't look that blown around, so maybe Notarbartolo is stretching the truth. The topper to the whole story is the double cross. After completing the heist, the team realizes their take is around $20
million instead of the $100 million they expected. Notarbartolo
believes that the jeweler who initiated the heist tipped off his fellow jewelers, telling them to keep their gems out of the vault and then later claim they were stolen, thus committing insurance fraud.
Many of these moments just fly off the page, and would make for the perfect adaptation for someone like J.J. Abrams, whose work on "Lost" demonstrates a knack for intricate plots, divided allegiances, and unexpected twists. He also recently bought a New York Times story about a family who enlisted architects to build a puzzle into their house, which his Bad Robot production company will produce. With so many successes at age 42, and the eagerly anticipated Star Trek releasing this May, it appears there's much in store for the writer/director/producer.
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