J.C. Chandor, best known for directing financial crisis drama Margin Call and A Most Violent Year, has signed on to helm the English-language remake of German thriller The Robber (Der Rauber).
Variety has the scoop, revealing that Chandor will take point for the modern retelling of Benjamin Heisenberg’s acclaimed original. Released in 2010, the filmmaker’s effort was actually based on a novel by Austrian author Martin Prinz, orbiting around a seasoned marathoner who uses his running habits as a deceitful cover-up to carry out a string of high-profile bank robberies.
At the time, it was nominated for the coveted Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film festival, and now, J.C. Chandor is attached to introduce the low-key thriller to a wider audience. He has the full backing FilmNation, too, with producer Neal Dodson offering a statement to Variety expressing his own excitement to nurture Heisenberg’s “extremely original” movie into a bona fide action-thriller.
“Growing the scope and scale of Benjamin’s extremely original film into a kinetic, elevated action-thriller is exciting for us to undertake with our new partners in Europe and our friends at FilmNation,” Dodson said. “We’ll be using the film, the novella and the true story it’s based on to make a smart, fast-paced and extremely entertaining movie”
Chase Palmer (Stephen King’s long-gestating IT) is attached to pen the screenplay. While it may be early days for J.C. Chandor’s The Robber remake to announce a cast or production timeline, the director’s other in-development project is beginning to gain some momentum, as recently we brought you the news that Johnny Depp has joined Chandor’s upcoming South American thriller Triple Frontier.