Rival Movies About The Hatton Garden Heist Head Into Production

Two rival films about the Hatton Garden heist are set to go into production.

Working Title, the British company behind hits like ‘Love, Actually’, and more recently 'The Theory of Everything’ and 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’, has bought the rights to a Vanity Fair article detailing the burglary, which netted what’s thought to be £200 million in cash and valuables.

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The heist, said to be the largest in English legal history, hit the headlines last April, when it emerged that it had been planned and carried out by four elderly, semi-retired but experienced thieves, now all jailed.

76-year-old Brian Reader was the robbery’s ringleader, accompanied on the job by 74-year-old John Collins, Daniel Jones, 58, and Terry Perkins, 67.

Four other men were also tried in connection to the robbery, with three of them also being found guilty.

They used special drills to bore through 50cm-thick vault walls using special industrial power drills at a safe deposit facility in London’s famous jewellery district.

The movie will go up against another project, announced by fellow UK production company Metrodome, and which is set to go into production in June.

With a £14 million budget, it was confirmed yesterday that it will be directed by Gabe Turner, who has directed sports documentaries 'Class of 92’ and 'I Am Bolt’.

It’s too early for casting news on either project as yet, but Michael Caine threw his hat in the ring for a movie version of the robbery in January.

“That story, the four guys in Hatton Garden, they are very, very tough,” he told Sky News.

“I’ve heard my name and Ray Winstone’s name mentioned. I would do it in an instant. I’ll be 83 in March, you know, so obviously there [are fewer roles] for me to play.”

But he added that signing him up would not be cheap.

“If they want me to do the Hatton Garden robbery I’ll do it – but it’ll cost you!”

Image credits: Rex Features/Getty