‘The Banks’: Three Generations of Thieves Unite for a Heist in Film Adaptation of Roxane Gay’s Graphic Novel

The Banks movie

Steve McQueen’s heist drama Widows didn’t make the box office splash that the filmmakers were hoping for, but can we interest you in a different Chicago-set heist movie about a group of female thieves?

Macro, the company behind 2018’s excellent Sorry to Bother You, is producing a movie adaptation of The Banks, a graphic novel written by author and journalist Roxane Gay. The story sounds similar to Widows, but this one follows three generations of female thieves who team up to pull off one huge score. Gay herself will write the screenplay, which will mark the acclaimed author’s first writing credit for either film or television.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Gay, the bestselling author of Bad Feminist, Difficult Women, and Hunger, will write the script for The Banks movie, which is based on the 2019 comic she wrote that was illustrated by Ming Doyle. Here’s the graphic novel’s synopsis:

For fifty years, the women of the Banks family have been the most successful thieves in Chicago by following one simple rule: never get greedy. But when the youngest Banks stumbles upon the heist of a lifetime, the potential windfall may be enough to bring three generations of thieves together for one incredible score and the chance to avenge a loved one taken too soon.

I haven’t read the graphic novel, but that description sounds pretty great. If you ask me, there aren’t enough heist thrillers in this world (Hollywood should be releasing at least a handful of these per year), and it’s especially exciting to see one getting made that has not only female leads, but Black female leads.

“I am thrilled to revisit the world of The Banks,” Gay said in a statement. “Clara, Cora, and Celia Banks are fierce women with compelling stories that will really come alive on the silver screen. I am also excited about partnering with TKO Studios, an amazing publisher to create comics with, and MACRO, a company that is a standard bearer for excellence with the films they make.”

Macro has been behind movies like Denzel Washington’s Fences, Dee Rees’s Mudbound, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Just Mercy, and Shaka King’s upcoming Judas and the Black Messiah, which just released its first trailer a few days ago and looks absolutely incredible. Charles D. King, Poppy Hanks, Jelani Johnson, Salvatore Simeone, Tze Chun, and Jatin Thakker will produce, but no director or cast are in place yet.