Looks like Jeremy Renner has gotten a taste for the criminal life. Having run around robbing banks all whacked off of Scooby Snacks (and scored an Oscar nomination for doing so) in The Town, he’s now attached to produce and star in an adaptation of J North Conway’s non-fiction tome King of Heists.
The eventual film will chronicle the true-life tale of George Leslie, a man who, in the 1860s, arrived in New York looking very much like every other dapper gent. But he was hiding a secret: he put together a team and in 1878, pulled off an audacious heist at the prestigious Manhattan Savings institution, making off with nearly $3 million in ill-gotten gains - which in modern terms is about a kajillion dollars. So careful was his planning that no one suspected his involvement until after his death.
Will Staples, a veteran of games such as Call of Duty who has also been involved in penning mysterious sci-fi project Myth for James Cameron, has been hired to write the script, which Renner will oversee with his producing partner Don Handfield.
Renner, meanwhile, has been on a more heroic kick recently, working on Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and as Hawkeye in** The Avengers**. Right now, he’s playing an amnesiac agent in The Bourne Legacy.