EXCLUSIVE
〉Howard will produce via his shingle, Imagine Ent.
Though it’s not going to hit shelves until March 1st, 2016, Taylor Bayouth’s How to Steal the Mona Lisa: and Six Other World-Famous Treasures is already primed for a big-screen adaptation. Imagine Entertainment has jump-started the project, which has been tentatively titled HOW TO STEAL THE MONA LISA & SIX OTHER TREASURES, with Imagine heads Ron Howard and Brian Grazer producing. Tyler Mitchell will oversee development for Imagine.
Bayouth’s debut novel is to be published via Perigee Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. How to Steal the Mona Lisa meticulously breaks down how to get away with seven impossible heists of priceless art and artifacts: the Archaeopteryx Lithographica, the Hope Diamond, the “Mona Lisa,” Rodin’s “Thinker,” the Crown Jewels, King Tut’s death mask, and the Codex Leicester.
Essentially a trusty how-to guide for nabbing the world’s most priced riches, the tongue-in-cheek book reveals how to the master the art of the heist, which contains all the tricks of the trade and all the step-by-step info one needs to gather equipment, recruit partners, plan the perfect crime, and quietly sell off your thieved treasures.
The film, which marks the latest in a string of films adapted from “how-to” novels, will be in the vein of a heist/treasure hunt adventure. Imagine seems a fitting home for the project, as it naturally contains similar elements to the Da Vinci Code series, which Howard directed.
Next up, Imagine is producing the Chris Hemsworth-starring shipwreck drama In The Heart of The Sea, which centers on a massive whale’s assault upon the New England whaling ship Essex in 1820. Heart of The Sea will bow this December with Howard at the helm. Imagine also just wrapped on the third Da Vinci Code installment, Inferno, and the Tom Cruise thriller Mena.
—TO SEE ALL THE PROJECT DETAILS CLICK HERE—
Clark Allen | Associate Editor
