Jeremy Renner nabbed his second Oscar nomination for playing a thief in The Town and now it looks like he’s going back to relieving banks of their money.  Deadline reports that Renner will star in the adaptation of J. North Conway’s non-fiction novel King of Heists: The Sensational Bank Robbery of 1878 That Shocked America.  Renner will play “George Leslie, who came to New York appearing to be a mannered gent, but secretly put together a crew and masterminded a heist of nearly $3 million in cash and securities from the Manhattan Savings Institution in 1878.”  As someone who constantly goes to New York appearing to be a mannered gent, I think I’ll really be able to relate to this character.  Will Staples, who wrote the Call of Duty video game, is attached to pen the screenplay.

Hit the jump for more on Renner’s upcoming projects, other films Staples’ is writing, and a synopsis of Conway’s King of Heists.

James Cameron and Sam Worthington are already set to reunite for two sequels to Avatar, but that’s apparently not enough for Fox.  Heat Vision reports that the studio has picked up a pitch from writer Will Staples called Myth, and wants to bring Cameron, Worthington, and Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura together on the film.  However, at this stage, Cameron is only attached to executive producer with di Bonaventura and Worthington attached to produce, although no deals are final.  Cameron would not direct and Worthington hasn’t made a commitment to star.  Nothing is known about Myth other than “it’s big, it’s sci-fi, and it’s got lots of action.”  Riveting.

The talent involved at this stage is still fungible at this point but Staples is attached to write the script.  Staples’ biggest claim to fame at this point is having served as a writer on the popular Call of Duty video game series.  He, along with writing partner Sean O’Keefe, also wrote Apaches for Jerry Bruckheimer and World’s Most Wanted for Neal Moritz.

THR is reporting that director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) is in negotiations to direct an Alaskan adventure project for Walden Media which will be written by Sean O’Keefe and Will Staples (writers of the video games Pursuit Force and Lair).  The film, which used to go by Ice Bound when it was being developed by Miramax, is currently untitled but will be based on The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic.  The book by Gay and Laney Salisbury tells the true story of the 674-mile journey that was undertaken by 20 men and 200 dogs when they had to rush an antidote to Nome, Alaska in 1925.

I still have hopes for Gavin Hood since I loved his Foreign Oscar-winning film. Tsotsi, but his films since then (Wolverine, Rendition) disappointed me.  I will still continue to anticipate whatever he does next, though.  I can see him making a truly epic adventure film with this if the studio lets him do what he wants so that we can avoid another Wolverine-kind of debacle.