If you got the chance to catch Gareth Evans’s Indonesian martial arts film, The Raid: Redemption, at any point over the last year, or even happened to read any reviews of it, then you know that it was pretty much the most butt-kickingly bad-ass movie that’s come around in a long time, and action fans the world over must be keeping themselves up at night wondering what awesome project Evans is going to add his stylish flare to next. Good news: we don’t have to wait for the info any longer.
Deadline Tual is reporting that Universal has acquired a drama called Breaking the Bank in the hopes of using it as a directing vehicle for the filmmaker. Originally developed by Darren Aronofsky and most recently written by Kerry Williamson, Breaking the Bank is based on the life of former MMA fighter Lee Murray, who went from choking people out for money to masterminding the biggest cash heist in history back in 2006. The details of Murray’s life that the film’s script co-opts are said to come from both Howard Sounes’ book “Heist: The True Story of the World’s Biggest Cash Robbery” and a Sports Illustrated article written by L. Jon Wertheim called, funnily enough, “Breaking the Bank.”
If there are two things that Evans showed he could direct the hell out of with The Raid: Redemption, they were fight scenes and heist situations, so it sounds like Universal is on the right track when it comes to getting the director a project that can both show off his skills and also look a little more friendly than The Raid did to the English-language-only film audiences out there. Even Philistines deserve to experience the shot of adrenaline that is watching a Gareth Evans actioner, and Breaking the Bank may become their opportunity.