He's just directed Flight with Denzel Washington, and now Robert Zemeckis has his eye on Taking Flight, a biopic of the "Barefoot Bandit" Colton Harris-Moore. He's taken the project over from David Gordon Greene, who has opted to remake Dario Argento's Suspiria instead.

Harris-Moore's story is certainly an extraordinary one. Aged 18, he began a spree of stealing planes and speedboats, leading American police on a mad chase across six states and three countries. He stole his first plane in November 2008, and continued his one-man crimewave through Washington, Canada, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Indiana, and was finally arrested in the Bahamas, in his trademark barefoot state.

Incredibly, he'd taught himself to fly purely by reading textbooks (which he'd stolen). He was better at taking off than landing, but managed to not die despite usually crashing. He sold the film rights to his story for more than a million dollars, but won't profit by it, since the money will be used to compensate those whose planes he wrecked. He's currently serving a seven-year jail sentence.

Zemeckis' first job is to oversee a new draft of the screenplay, courtesy of Dustin Lance Black (Milk). The research and shape of the narrative apparently comes from an as-yet unpublished book by Bob Friel, Taking Flight: The Hunt For A Young Outlaw.

Flight, a mystery about a narrowly-averted passenger jet crash, is out in the UK on January 25.