Just like the movie’s director Michael Bay, and its producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, **Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen **writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman haven’t spent the last few days basking in the movie’s incredible success, or using their share of the profits to buy a small country. Instead, they’ve been lining up their next movie.
And that movie is… drum-roll… Licence To Steal, a spec script by Shane Salerno that the duo picked up with the intention to produce. It’s the first project to be set up at Paramount under the studio’s new boss, Adam Goodman, but he didn’t get it for a steal – instead, the studio paid an undisclosed seven-figure sum for it. Wowsers.
So, what did Paramount get for their great big sacks of cash? Well, they’re getting an action movie loosely based on a salon.com article by Marc Weingarten about high-end repo men whose job it is to reclaim speedboats, private jets and the like from high-rollers who’ve failed to meet the repayments. And, all too often, these high-rollers aren’t awfully keen to part with their property…
Sounds like it could be a blast, even if the presence of Salerno does give some cause for concern. After all, just because his last three credited screenplays are Armageddon, Shaft and Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s a bad writer. Besides, he’s currently writing a project for James Cameron, which is good enough for us. And The Kurtzman/Orci Entity clearly believes in him…
"We're thrilled to be working with Shane, a wildly inventive and talented creator,” said the two-headed duo in a statement (they must have been taking every alternate word). “His passion was clear the minute he started telling his story. He has crafted a smart, lighthearted action movie that's fun and topical, with a ton of unexpected plot twists.”
And they’re not alone in believing in Salerno. Although Paramount were the ones to snap up the script, it was also shopped around town at three different studios with, unusually, three different A-list directors attached: Timur Bekmambetov and Salerno plugged it at Universal, McG waxed lyrical at Warner Bros. and Bryan Singer talked really quickly about it over at Sony.
But it’s Paramount that moved quickest, although no director is attached to this version… yet. But with The Kurtzman/Orci Entity on board with their licence to print money, expect **Licence To Steal **to move fast.