With the various side projects, planned sequels and half-formed ideas for films rattling around inside Quentin Tarantino’s noggin, you might be forgiven for thinking that the announcement about a prequel to **Jackie Brown would have his fingerprints all over it. Well, yes and no.
Turns out there is one being written, or rather adapted, from Brown novelist Elmore Leonard’s own prequel tale The Switch. But, as JoBlo reports, the movie version isn’t being driven by QT, though it has his blessing: writer/director Dan Schechter is behind it.
The Switch finds younger versions of Ordell Robbie (Samuel L Jackson) and Louis Gara (Robert De Niro) becoming prison pals when they’re both locked up for grand theft auto (not the game, the real thing). Upon their release, they make a plan to team up for a big score, kidnapping a wealthy property developer’s wife to blag a big ransom. Trouble is, the scumbag businessman doesn’t actually want his missus back, and soon the criminal pair are plotting with his angry wife to take him for all he’s got.
If the plot sounds familiar, you’re not imagining things: 1986’s Danny DeVito-starring comedy Ruthless People had a similar plot, though that one was adapted from am O. Henry story.
Schechter has written the script with no studio yet attached to make it, though he’s now on the hunt for a director and performers to get it made. Calling all younger Sam Jackson and Robert De Niro types: your moment has arrived!