Jeremy Renner is exploding in Hollywood. After grabbing his second Oscar nomination this past year for his work in The Town, he’s been piling up projects left and right. He’s nabbed roles in the upcoming films Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Avengers, and The Bourne Legacy, and now its being reported that Renner will star in King of Heists, the adaptation of J. North Conway’s non-fiction novel King of Heists: The Sensational Bank Robbery of 1878 That Shocked America.
Renner will play George Leslie, a man who, after the death of his parents, abandoned the family trade of architecture and became a master thief.
Up-and-coming screenwriter Will Staples has been brought on to pen the screenplay. Staples recently sold a Sci-Fi script to James Cameron for Sam Worthington to star called Myth.
No studio has committed to backing the project yet but Renner’s own production company The Combine along with Black Bear Pictures will produce.
Here’s the synopsis from J. North Conway’s novel:
King of Heists is a spellbinding account of the greatest bank robbery in American history, which took place on October 27, 1878, when thieves broke into the Manhattan Savings Institution and stole nearly $3 million in cash and securities—around $50 million in today’s terms. One of the largest banks in the world, the Manhattan Savings Institution was a depository for the money, jewelry, securities, and other valuables of some of the most prominent, wealthy citizens of New York City. The robbery was planned to the minutest detail by the mysterious and notorious George Leslie—a society architect whose double life as the nation’s most prolific bank robber led him to be dubbed the “King of the Bank Robbers.” An absorbing tale of greed, sex, crime, betrayal, and murder, King of Heists blends all the richness of history with the thrills of the best fiction.