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D.J. Caruso & Chris Pine to Practice The Art of Making Money

by Ethan Anderton
October 13, 2009

After paying $2 million dollars for an untitled pitch, Paramount certainly knows the art of spending money, but now they'll be getting into The Art of Making Money as Variety reports the studio is fast-tracking the new fact-based drama for production early next year. D.J. Caruso (Disturbia, Eagle Eye) will direct Chris Pine (Star Trek) in the leading role of "Art Williams, the alias for a Chicago man who rose from petty theft to become a master counterfeiter." The screenplay is based on the Jason Kersten book The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter which spawned from his own article in Rolling Stone.

"Born in 1972 and abandoned by his father to poverty, the gritty gangs of Chicago and a mentally ill mother, Art Williams slid into an underworld of theft and violence before a bohemian money crafter introduced him to counterfeiting. With swagger, ingenuity and a devoted wife, Williams produced millions of dollars worth of uncannily accurate bills for 14 years, till the Secret Service caught up with him." Sounds like we've got another Frank Abagnale, Jr. kind of Catch Me if You Can-like project on our hands here. Does Tom Hanks get to chase him?

Deals haven't been finalized yet, but very rarely are deals like this announced without near certainty in their chances of actually happening. Part of me wonders if this was a project that originally had Shia LeBeouf in mind (after all he has a very established relationship with Caruso), but with his work on the upcoming Wall Street sequel, it might have been too much financial wheeling and dealing for the actor to partake. Either way, after Chris Pine's stellar performance as Captain James T. Kirk in this summer's Star Trek, I'm ready to see him take on many more leading roles, in this or Unstoppable or anything else. How about you?

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http://cinebluster.wordpress.com/ Bryan

Catch Me If You Can was the first thing I thought of too. Its gonna be interesting to see how they pull off this story. The fun with CMIYC was that he played a con-artist and hopped from profession to profession, here I think they are going to have to make the tension even higher...
Matt S

The first think I thought, when I heard this, was "thank goodness, hopefully that means that Caruso and Shia will leave 'Y The Last Man' alone"! I think "Y" could be an amazing set of films, but I don't think Caruso (or Shia really) would be the proper route to take, at all. I adore the series and think it would be a HUGE shame if it was wasted on a sub-par (hell, even on a par) film (which Caruso loves to make). This movie sounds okay though, I guess.
Hugh

Man, I really respect Chris Pine as an actor, but that guy is just making some strange choices coming off of "Star Trek". You would think he would have a wide set of choices for film projects to pursue, and yet the first film he does is "Unstoppable", playing second fiddle to Denzel Washington in a somewhat blah sounding movie. And now, he attaches himself to a redo of "Catch Me if You Can", playing a role that Leonardo DiCaprio already made popular. I don't get it. Uninspired choices from Mr. Pine.
raquelswell

I like Chris Pine and Caruso is the right person to helm a mainstream movie on this topic.