Quiver in giggly excitement, girlies. When Unstoppable grinds to a halt and everyone disembarks, making sure to take their belongings with them, Tony Scott may next be oiling up and flexing his abs (god, we wish we hadn't thought of that image) for a Chippendales movie.
Not about the family of the 18th century furniture maker, sadly for antiquers, but the 1980s male stripping phenomenon, created and developed by Steve Banerjee: a rise and fall tale of soul-consuming '80s excess if ever there was one.
The film will be Banerjee's story. Starting out running gas stations and mudwrestling clubs, he hit paydirt when he came up with the idea of presenting male strippers in a choreographed, brand-named touring fantasy show. But behind the success was a catalogue of lawsuits and mad paranoia, culminating in Banerjee paying a hitman to have original 'dales choreographer Nick DeNoia murdered. Denied bail following evidence that he'd made arrangements to flee to India in a private plane, Banerjee hung himself in his cell, hours before his sentencing.
Sex, violence and spiralling bad craziness: you can sort of see why the official line is "a tone similar to True Romance". But given Scott's bombastic style and the weird-true-story nature of the material, we're saying more Domino (underrated, since you ask).
The as-yet-untitled script is currently being bashed out by Lisa Schrager, who's also written the Heidi Fleiss biopic Pay the Girl. No start date yet.