Jewelry Thieves Pink Panthers to Get Euro TV Series Treatment

Vivendi’s CanalPlus and BSkyB’s Sky Atlantic are teaming up on a new series, The Last Panthers, starring John Hurt, Tahar Rahim and Samantha Morton. The heist thriller will tell the story of the infamous Pink Panthers gang, which is responsible for high-profile jewel heists all over the world and previously also got the movie treatment.

The gang is suspected to have been behind a big jewelry heist during the Cannes Film Festival in 2013.

Based on an idea from journalist Jerome Pierrat, Panthers will be written by Skins scribe Jack Thorne and directed by Johan Renck, who has directed episodes of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and Bates Motel. The French title cited Monday was simply Panthers.

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The six-episode series opens with a diamond heist and follows the goods as they move throughout Europe in an alliance between the worlds of organized crime, government officials, war criminals and high finance. Morton plays an insurance expert, Hurt her boss and Rahim a French-Algerian police officer also on the hunt for the missing jewels.

The series will be co-produced by Jimmy Desmarais and Caroline Benjo of Haut et Court TV and Peter Carlton of Warp Films. Benjo and Carlton framed it as “an ambitious, modern and uncompromising portrait of today’s Europe. Through the perspective of different characters, Panthers raises the question of whether past alliances can survive the cruel realities of the present and shows how the personal story of each of us and the moral choices we make have unpredictable consequences on our lives.”

Read more Smash and Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers: Film Review

Paris-based Haut et Court, which has made the international hit The Returned (Les Revenants), and the U.K.’s Warp Films will produce. Shooting starts on Oct. 27 in London, Marseille, Belgrade and Montenegro in English, French and Serbian.

The companies announced the project on Monday. The networks previously partnered on The Tunnel, a remake of Scandinavian hit The Bridge. Tandem and Sky Vision will handle worldwide distribution.

The series will air on CanalPlus in France and Sky Atlantic in the U.K. and Germany.