Robert Zemeckis is planning to follow his first live-action project in 12 years, Flight, with a true-story adaptation that’s currently called Taking Flight, although as that name is quite similar to Zemeckis’ upcoming movie, expect it to change.

The project has been in development since April 2010, when 20th Century Fox acquired a book proposal by Bob Friel, which chronicles the bizarre criminal exploits of Colton Harris-Moore, aka. The Barefoot Bandit. The teenager was suspected of committing over 100 crimes after he escaped from a Pacific Northewest juvenile detention centre in 2008.

He became known as The Barefoot Bandit after a witness saw him fleeing the scene of a crime without any shoes on. The criminal is considered by some to be a modern-day Robin Hood, with tens of thousands of fans on his Facebook page, after such exploits as stealing a plane a flying away from the polive. In January, he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for a string of federal crimes.

Dustin Lance Black (Milk) is writing the screenplay. David Gordon Green was previously attached to direct, although he was forced to drop out due to the fact his horror remake Suspiria starts production next month. (Source: THR)