Director Danny Boyle is set to direct a film about the notorious Pink Panther jewel thieves, Variety reports. The feature film would be adapted from Smash & Grab, a recently released documentary about the gang that's said to have stolen 330 million euros (around $450 million) in jewelry since 1999. Boyle, Variety's sources say, was interested in creating a fictional take on the documentary, and his longtime producer Christian Colson is said to also be attached. Boyle's last film was Trance, also a heist movie.
According to Interpol, the Pink Panthers have committed over 300 robberies across 35 countries, pulling off heists with stunning speed and meticulous planning — one theft in Dubai was completed within a minute. Smash & Grab documents their story with a combination of security camera footage and interviews with members of the gang itself, whose possibly hundreds of members are based loosely in the Balkans. While members have been arrested and jailed, some have managed to escape, with just as much audacity.