Hollywood über director/producer Michael Bay loves Miami. He's filmed flicks here (Bad Boy I, II, and soon III), has a deal in the works with local outfit Rakontur to bring a Cocaine Cowboys-series to HBO, and even showed up at the U2 concert last night (where he hung out with King James). Heck, he even bought Hulk Hogan's former digs on Miami Beach in 2007 for a cool $18 million.
Yeah, the guy's had a Miami thing since he played a goon on Miami Vice in 1986. And his official Mr. Miami status looks to be eternally cemented with his next flick which was born from the pages of the Miami New Times. That's right. We're going to Hollywood!
Bay told MTV Wednesday that he'll be bringing our 1999 three-part cover story "Pain and Gain" (read the three-part series here) to the big screen as his next project. Former staff writer Pete Collins
wrote the story about a group of roided out bodybuilders from Miami
Lakes who kidnapped, tortured, and bilked a Miami businessman out of
millions. Although we had already heard rumors that Bay would make the story a movie, he finally confirmed it.
Two years ago, Bay told MTV News that he was pursuing "a small little movie" that would be in the vein of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." Since then, we've learned a bit more -- that it focuses on extortion and abductions in the Florida criminal underworld, that it's based on a true story, and that it's "a dark comedy." Now, we know something else about "Pain & Gain" ... it's his next movie.
The caper was both brilliant and inept as the meathead masterminds made
the victim sign over his house and assets, and got away with more than $2 million in valuables and cash. But they botched six kidnapping attempts before they got the victim
and then failed to kill him despite trying to light him on fire, getting
him drunk, and staging a car crash, and even running him over...twice.
They held him captive in a Miami warehouse for over a month and tortured
him until he told the rest of his family to move back to Colombia and his
lawyer that he was getting rid of all his assets. And they forced him to change the
beneficiary of his life insurance. But when they couldn't finish the
job, they opened the door for the victim to get his revenge.
Bay has been talking about developing the project for some time, but now
that he has his latest Transformers flick raking in the dough, it looks
like he's ready to take on what he considers a "smaller project" at only
$20 million, he told MTV.
Thankfully, the movie won't be shot in 3-D. Bay wouldn't say what actors he
considering for the project, but at least we know it's another Miami
movie that is virtually guaranteed to make money -- like most his flicks --
whether it does the story justice or not.
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