'30 Minutes Or Less' Collar Bomb Heist Gets True-Life Dramatic Treatment

In Ruben Fleischer's 2011 comedy 30 Minutes or Less, Jesse Eisenberg played a pizza delivery boy forced to rob a bank when two men strapped a bomb to him. The idea came from a real-life event that took place in Erie, PA in 2003, as detailed in Wired Magazine. Unlike that film, though, the actual situation was much more complicated, dire and interesting. New producers have now decided it's time for a true-life, dramatic retelling.

Mythology Entertainment and Anyway Entertainment have just purchased the rights to both the aforementioned Wired article by Rich Schapiro as well as the upcoming book Pizza Bomber: The Untold Story of America's Most Shocking Bank Robbery, by formers FBI agent Gerald Clark and journalist Ed Palattella. They plan on using the two texts to make dramatic version of this incredible, real life event, currently titled Collar Bomb Heist. Read more after the jump.

Deadline broke the news of this film, which has a laundry list of producers including popular screenwriters Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island) and James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man).

The Pizza Bomber book won't be out until November but you can read the fascinating, full Wired story by Rich Schaprio at this link. It's long, but insanely well researched and engaging. The basic gist is that a man named Brian Douglas Wells walked into a bank and robbed it based on the fact he was wearing a bomb strapped around his neck. On the way out the bomb went off, instantly killing him. As police investigated, they eventually realized that Wells was in on the heist but didn't think the bomb was real. They worked their way back finding the mastermind, but the layers upon layers of detail are remarkable.

The whole story makes infinitely more sense as a thriller drama, in the vein of Dog Day Afternoon or Inside Man for example, than the comedic spin 30 Minutes or Less. With that film they just borrowed the idea and didn't use the real names, places or facts. That won't be the case here and if this is done right, it could surely be something very interesting and worthwhile.

Photo: Wired, Erie Federal Courthouse; Erie Bureau of Police; Newscom