The American Film Market is in full swing at the moment, and back at the event in 2009, “The Electric Slide” was being shopped to potential buyers with a mocked up poster featuring its attached stars, Ewan McGregor and Carey Mulligan. Fast-forward three years and the film is back at the AFM where Myriad Pictures has taken on sales duties for the flick, which is now being top-lined by Jim Sturgess and Isabel Lucas.
The film is based on the true story from the 1980s of a Los Angeles furniture store owner called Dodson (Sturgess) who robbed a bank to impress his new girlfriend. The handsome and charismatic Dodson went on to rob 72 more banks in just a matter of months, and earned himself the nickname The Gentleman Bandit after often charming bank tellers into emptying their cash draws. The film will be directed by Tristan Patterson (who also penned the script), and Patricia Arquette, Chloe Sevigny and Christopher Lambert are also on board for the project.
The “Bonnie and Clyde”-esque tale sounds like ripe fodder for a modest hit if handled well, even if Sturgess and Lucas probably don’t have quite the same draw that McGregor and Mulligan would. Still, they were probably cheaper too, and this writer is a huge advocate of Jim Sturgess, who drove the tonally similar “21” to a global gross in excess of $150 million back in 2008. The film is currently shooting in Los Angeles, so don’t expect the leads to change again. [The Wrap]