EXCLUSIVE: The Town is abuzz over High Side, a package based on an unpublished short story by Jaime Oliveira that looms as a potential reteam of Timothée Chalamet and James Mangold. They are just coming off A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan smash that got eight Oscar nominations. Chernin Entertainment is attached as producer. Sugar23, which reps Oliveira, is out to the town with the short story pitch package that is also making a buzz in publishing circles.
In High Side, Billy is a former MotoGP racer, haunted by a career-ending crash and a family legacy of abandonment, is drawn back into the world of high-speed risks and extreme danger. His estranged brother, already being pursued by the FBI, recruits him for a series of bank robberies on superbikes. A gifted motocross rider, Billy walked away from the sport after a devastating accident, and he has been making do caring for his addict father and the family garage. He’s blindsided when his estranged older brother Cole resurfaces—just after their father’s death—with a proposition: use Billy’s talents for something bigger. Robbing banks. Cole assembles a mismatched crew, including a woman who becomes Billy’s lover, and they begin knocking over small-town desert banks with speed and precision. But as the stakes rise, Lennox, an FBI agent with a complicated history with Cole, closes in as the crew preps its biggest score, a bank job timed with a big motorcycle parade. There are high-speed action and emotional twists and turns in the climax.
Chalamet is shooting the climax of Dune, and he has the Josh Safdie-directed table tennis drama Marty Supreme coming in December from A24. Stay tuned.
