In a very on-the-nose example of art imitating life, or maybe life imitating art, the French set of Lupin was targeted by thieves who reportedly made off with over $300,000 worth of equipment. Considering the popular Netflix series is about a thief who pull off a series of elaborate robberies, headlines ran wild with calling the incident a “heist,” but eyewitnesses are now saying the whole thing is anything but. Via The Hollywood Reporter:
“That’s a big word, ‘heist,’” laughs Brahim Rochdi, owner of Le 35, the restaurant in which a scene was being filmed that day. “You use that word for a bank robbery,” he says in an interview conducted in French. “What I saw was kids with firecrackers that showed up, that’s all.”
Rochdi, whose restaurant serves standard brasserie fare as well as North African specialties, was inside Le 35 when he heard pops going off on the sidewalk. “I didn’t realize [what was going on] at first,” he says. “I thought it was in the movie.” But for those outside, Rochdi says, it was “general panic.”
After rushing to help the cast and crew hide out inside of his restaurant, Rochdi observed the commotion and said none of the perpetrators looked older than 15, and some were possibly even 12. However, they were able to make off with camera equipment just a day after robbers held up the set of The Crown and made off with jewels. Police have not said if there’s a connection between the two, but the haphazard execution of the Lupin robbery suggests it wasn’t the work of criminal masterminds.
To cap off an already rough week for Netflix, on Thursday, a historic textile mill often used on series like Peaky Blinders went up in flames as over 100 firefighters rushed to put out the “full building fire.” Now, if that ends up being the work of kids with fireworks, too, then maybe call Interpol.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
