Danny Boyle is to direct a feature film adaptation of a BBC Storyville documentary about a notorious gang of diamond thieves.
BBC Storyville’s Smash and Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers was premiered at the Sheffield Doc/Fest earlier this year. It tells the story of a gang of thieves, who’ve pulled off more than 241 robberies worth more than £270m. The Pink Panthers are thought to number around 100 members and they’ve organised robberies in Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland, Japan, Liechtenstein and Germany.
They got their name when they raided a Mayfair jewellers twenty years ago. They hid a diamond worth more than half a million pounds in a tub of face cream – just as Peter Sellers did in the original Pink Panther films.
The documentary combines surveillance footage of the robberies, archive about the rise of the group during the Balkan conflict in the 1990s as well as interviews with those involved.
Pathe and Fox Searchlight are to co-finance Boyle’s movie adaptation.
