Dunbar Robbery Movie in the Works From Caleeb Pinkett (EXCLUSIVE)
“Charm City Kings” producer Caleeb Pinkett has teamed up with production company Rebel Maverick for a film based on Alyssa Keli Rose’s Medium article “The Dunbar Heist,” Variety has learned exclusively.
Pinkett, the brother of Jada Pinkett Smith, will produce the project with Clarence Hammond and Dougie Cash. Rebel Maverick’s Matt Nicholas and Nastassja Kayln will also be producing, with Jane Kim Yang overseeing for their company. Norman Towns (“Insecure”) brought in the project and will be executive producing.
Nicholas and Kayln are adapting the script with screenwriter Leon Langford.
The 1997 robbery took place at the Dunbar Armored facility in Los Angeles — five men stole $18.9 million in under 30 minutes. Allen Pace III, a fired employee of the Dunbar depot, was the mastermind who planned the robbery for two years and recruited four of his closest friends. After four years of thwarting law enforcement, the scheme fell apart after one of the robbers, Eugene Lamar Hill, gave a real estate broker a stack of cash bound together with the original currency straps.
Pace was sentenced in 2001 to 24 years in federal prison.
“What really drove us to want to bring this true story to the big screen is our love for heists and also, most importantly, seeing someone finally come out on top after always being at the bottom of the barrel. That was and is Allen Pace III,” the producers said in a joint statement.
Pinkett is executive producing the series “Cobra Kai.” He’s also produced “After Earth,” “Annie” and “Life in a Year” for Sony Pictures Entertainment and Columbia Pictures, as well as “Hala” for Apple TV Plus and “Charm City Kings” for HBO Max.
Pinkett is repped by CAA, while Nicholas and Kayln’s Rebel Maverick is with attorney Danny Miller of Hirsch, Wallerstein, Matlof and Fishman. Langford is with UTA and Energy Entertainment. Towns is repped by Joseph Le Talent and Robert Stein Management.
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