How will the heist film classic translate to the small screen?
The Italian Job — both the original 1969 film and the 2003 reboot — is one of the movies that isn't doing anything particularly revolutionary, so much as doing a well-worn genre extremely well. Will that translate to the small screen? We're about the find out...
The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that NBC has given a script commitment to a TV series based on The Italian Job. The show will follow a found family of expert criminals who come out of retirement to try to save their beloved patriarch from jail. Like the previous films, the TV show will feature the character of Charlie Croker at its center, a criminal trying to go straight, but who can't help but get pulled back into this adrenaline-fueled world of high-stakes crime. You know how it is.
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Unlike the movies, it seems that the show will feature a prison break rather than a heist. But, hey, who says we can't have both? According to the report, the show hopes to "preserve the action, humor, romance and picturesque international locales from the movies." Hopefully, that means scenes set in Venice and the Italian Alps... That sounds expensive.
The Italian Job TV series will be written and executive produced by Rob Weiss (Entourage, Ballers) and Benjamin Brand (Bollywood Hero). It will also share an executive producer with the 2003 remake movie in the form of Donald De Line.
This sounds like it could be cool. There aren't a lot of heisty shows on television. However, much of what made the films work were their all-star casts — Michael Caine starred in the original, with Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland, Edward Norton, and Jason Stratham amongst the killer cast in the remake — and the on-point direction. Will a TV show, with presumably a much smaller budget, and a potentially less-charismatic cast be able to hit the same entertainment value as either of the films? We'll see...
Here's the trailer from the 1969 version...
And here's the trailer from the 2003 remake...