Paul Feig to Direct Italian Job Sequel in Development

Vital Pictures is developing a follow-up to The Italian Job, with Paul Feig attached to direct, according to a report from Deadline. A writers’ room is being assembled, and no cast has been confirmed. The studio is officially moving forward with a project that has, for two generations of MINI owners, done more for the brand than any advertising campaign.

The 1969 original made the classic Mini a getaway car icon decades before MINI existed as a modern brand. When MINI USA marked the marque’s 60th birthday, it pointed to the film’s opening weekend as the moment the Mini’s cultural profile changed for good.

The 2003 remake, directed by F. Gary Gray, did the same for the reintroduced R50 generation. It featured Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, and a trio of red, white, and blue Cooper S models in a Los Angeles chase sequence. This ended up selling more Minis than most dealer brochures.

Feig, fresh off directing The Housemaid, is developing a successor rather than a straight remake. There is no script yet, no confirmed timeline, and no word on which generation of Mini, if any, will be the hero car this time.

The heist film formula—an antihero crew, meticulous planning, and a getaway sequence built around a nimble small car, has aged well. It does not depend on spectacle for its own sake. The 2003 film grossed roughly $176 million worldwide against a modest budget, largely due to a chase choreographed for a car that could dive through the Los Angeles storm drains.

The brand later leaned on the same imagery for a 2012 short film tied to the London Olympics and again in a 2019 commercial for the launch of the Cooper SE. This restaged the Lingotto rooftop chase from the original 1969 film to introduce the brand’s first electric production model.

A new film gives MINI a rare opportunity: a built-in marketing moment that requires no invented backstory. Audiences already know the small British car is capable of outrunning a police fleet through narrow streets. The only open question is whether MINI gets a seat at the table this time, or whether Vital builds the chase sequence around something else entirely.

This genre has a habit of generating premature enthusiasm. MotoringFile reported on sequel talk back in 2004, and NBC announced a television reboot in 2016 that went nowhere. The lesson from two decades of false starts is simple: treat this as a real, funded project with a director attached, but not yet a greenlit production with a release date.

We will keep tracking this as the writers’ room takes shape.