Today marks the 1600th anniversary of the Visigoths’ Sack of Rome. It was the first time the Roman capital had been successfully invaded in 800 years, and it ushered in the Dark Ages. What better way to celebrate the decline of Western civilization than with the announcement of a new Brett Ratner film?
Deadline reports that hobgoblin Brian Grazer has signed Ratner and Ben Stiller onto Tower Heist: Stiller stars as the overworked manager of a luxury building who, along with other staff, lost their pensions to a Bernie Madoff-like Wall Street crook. It so happens that the fraudster is being held under house arrest in the luxury penthouse apartment upstairs, and the manager and four cohorts figure a heist will make them whole.
The movie has been in gestation for several years, originally getting life as an “urban” film with Donal Trump to fill the Madoff-like role. Ratner has been dying to do a heist flic ever since walking away from Ocean’s Eleven (Jesus, what a bullet dodge that was).
I imagine we can look forward to yet another Ratner masterpiece. And a moderately attractive female production assistant can look forward to giving him a bj in his trailer during production.