Best Hit Movies: The Barefoot Bandit Gets $1.3 Million Deal with 20th Century Fox

Thursday, August 11, 2011

The Barefoot Bandit Gets $1.3 Million Deal with 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox buys rights to The Barefoot Bandit

20 year old Colton Harris-Moore, known to most as The Barefoot Bandit, went on a two-year crime spree during his teens that ended with him crashing a plane he learned to fly himself.

20th Century Fox has picked up his life rights for $ 1.3 million, and Oscar-winning Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black is penning a screenplay about his exploits.

Colton Harris-Moore will not profit from the deal, as all $ 1.3 million will go to paying the victims he criminalized, to which he owes $ 1.4 million in restitution. The deal covers movie and ancillary rights.

Colton Harris-Moore had this to say about selling his story rights to 20th Century Fox.

"I did things that were not only a violation of law, but also of trust. I can't undo what I did. I can only try to make things better. I am humbled to know I can now help the people I hurt, at least for the financial damage I caused them. I have absolutely zero interest in profiting from any of this and I won't make a dime off it. It all goes to restitution. That's what I insisted on from the beginning and the contract I signed guarantees it."

There is no set production start date on The Barefoot Bandit.