“I will steal, con, sly and charm my way to the top of the elite, the rich and powerful, and take as much as I can to share and enjoy with the least unfortunate” Norberto Lagaña.
A few years back I heard this amazing story about a group of friends that, tired of their stressful economical living situation. they decided to go and rob those responsible for their grievance.
Specialty stock brokers involved with Enron, these 3 friends made a pact that they would not use guns or violence but their brains to successfully con those corrupt individuals that made the economy of their time tank.
Did they succeed? Of course not…. Their grandiose plan ended pretty badly after their first attempt, yet the romanticism of the thief, the Robin Hood syndrome was what attracted me to their story.
Since then, my attraction to heist and crime stories became and obsession. Having watched the greats (Ocean’s Eleven, Nine Queens, Heist, Heat, Dog Day Afternoon, The Killing, etc…), having read the best (Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, Frances Fyfield, Elmore Leonard among many others) and dreamed about the great unusual heist possibilities… in houses, in malls, in stores, even a church… I let my imagination wonder wildly knowing that I will never have the guts to commit an act of crime myself but I would be able to tell an intense, interesting and spectacular story one day. The years passed, this idea, this urge, never die down… many stories went along, great opportunities came my way (my upcoming film Art Officially Favored, featuring Steven Tyler, Jack Douglas, and Joe Elliot just to name a few) and the chance to work with amazing masters (Roger Kupelian) but yet the hunger, the desire of telling my own version of a heist was still unfulfilled… until, finally…
It was the beginning of 2011 and I was offered the chance to direct Amelia’s 25th a tale about a young actress that suffers an existential crisis on the day of her twenty fifth birthday. Although this genre wasn’t initially in my immediate plans I decided to embrace the opportunity because I felt it was a good test for me to learn how to dabble in a different genre without losing my own voice as well as the opportunity to direct actors such as Danny Trejo, Margaret Cho, and Academy Award nominee Jennifer Tilly. The experience was pretty amazing and dramatically reinforced my instincts not to wait for the perfect moment any longer…; in the middle of production I called my writing partner for the past 2 years, Daniel Messier, with whom I had been developing the action thriller ROGUES, and my former colleague from Roger Kupelian’s Fugitive Studios, Levon Shant Demirjian, to script the ultimate heist story that I’ve always wanted to do. Sexy, sensual, dramatic, hilarious, with edgier high stakes and plenty of social matters masked in their actions. Intelligent, clever, with the most amazing seat grabbers that we could make. There were a few rules that I wanted to impose on our production:
1) I wanted the main protagonists to be French. One of the things that we lack in the city of Los Angeles is sensuality… don’t get me wrong, sensuality is present here but their citizens don’t know how to tap on that resource. I wanted the characters to share the same striking personality force that I personally experience in this country. I felt French was the ultimate voice of seduction that could melt the icy hearts of the world.
2) It wasn’t about striking perfection, It was about how sensual been “interesting and quirky” really was. I wanted the protagonists to follow that.
3) No matter how much money it would cost us on paper to make this film… I still wanted to treat it as the ultimate indie guerrilla film, allowing me to share my techniques and production knowledge to the world…. ergo making an amazing movie for dirt cheap without compromising quality (compared to Hollywood studios of course).
4) It was one of my biggest desires to bring something new…. no matter what it was, to the world of film…. anything… from a phrase to an image…. I wanted identity! (With a huge portion of integrity to be added to the mix)
5) Music was going to be our own, from talented friends that we know (Michael Masley, Magnolia Memoir, the Young Romans, Bash just to name a few), Sexy Funky and Groovy…. those are the rules of engagement.
6) The format will be digital… yet we would have our own look, for when people saw any frame of the film they could recognize our mark.
7) Our leads will be relatively outstanding unknowns …. but the supporting will be actors that people could recognize in the streets (Giving a chance to those that the industry neglects due to their silly rules
We are making a FOREIGN film in Hollywood (the Eddie Van Halen effect; coming from nowhere and exploding into the scene ala “Eruption”) allowing us not to be local but Worldwide. 9) Room from Improvisation: Our Cast ( De Flaco, Messier and Dabin – Pons) share an spectacular chemistry rarely seen today resembling the cast of “Swingers” LES MAGNIFIQUES is that clever and emotional heist film that I have always wanted to do. Full of opportunities to surprise the audience, we are set on making an unpredictable roller-coaster that will only end in a standing ovation.
