Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) has been tapped by Summit Entertainment to helm the adaptation of the book Storming Las Vegas: How a Cuban-Born, Soviet-Trained Commando Took Down the Strip to the Tune of Five World Class Hotels, Three Armored Cars, and Millions of Dollars.
Long title notwithstanding, the acquisition of the book’s film rights is another in a long line of projects Summit has lined up based on a book—their biggest being the moneymaker that is the “Twilight” film series.
Debuting in 2008, Deadline reports that book focuses on Jose Vigoa, a Cuban-born commando vet of the Soviet army who found his way to Vegas in the 1990s. While the casinos of Vegas were trying to embrace a cleaner, less crime-infested image, Vigoa amassed a crew that targeted some of the town's most prominent casinos in a spree that went on for 16 months. During this time, Lt. John Almshaw, a 23-year vet of the Vegas police force, was charged with tracking down Vigoa and under a veil of secrecy that would not hinder the attempts to clean Vegas’ public image.
In other words, this project has Public Enemies meets Ocean's Eleven meets L.A. Confidential written all over it. Naturally, the title has been reverted to something a little easier to fit on a poster: Storming Las Vegas. Fuqua has shown some gravitas before, but his latest feature Brooklyn’s Finest wasn’t exactly a smash with critics and audiences alike. Could “Vegas” be a turnaround?