Some movie titles do half the work of telling you exactly what to expect before you hear anything else about the film. Jason Statham Stole My Bike is very much one of those titles. It’s ridiculous, instantly funny, and pretty much impossible to hear without wanting to know more. That mystery has been part of the appeal ever since the project started making noise, especially because pairing Statham with David Leitch for something self-aware and action-heavy already sounds like a great idea. Now Leitch has finally opened up about the film, and while he’s still keeping some cards close to his chest, he’s given a much clearer sense of what kind of wonderful chaos this thing is actually built around.
Speaking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub at CinemaCon for his new movie, How to Rob a Bank, Leitch first tried to preserve some of the movie’s mystery. “I don’t want to get into many of the details because it is the greatest film title of all time, as you said,” laughed Leitch. He added, “It’s really fun. Yeah, it’s an amazing title. It forces you to ask a lot of questions, and I think that’s the biggest thing. So I don’t want to give you too much because I want people to still live with the mystery of it all. But look, it’s Jason playing Jason in a movie that he’s going to have to…I don’t want to give too much.”
When Weintraub asked whether Statham was playing the same persona he brings to most of his movies, Leitch made the answer very clear:
“No, he’s playing Jason Statham. He’s playing himself. I think that that’s what’s really interesting about it to me. I think it’s different than some of these other meta movies. We’re just really trying to capture something comedic and fun. Obviously, there are some referential things going on. There is a four-quadrant element to it. It’s fun, and it’s family, and it’s a chance for Jason and I to do something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and that’s, really, get together and make a story with a heart.”
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
Where and When Is ‘Jason Statham Stole My Bike’ Filming?
Jason Statham in a black hoodie on the red carpetIan West/PA Images/INSTARimages
Leitch also confirmed that the movie will be PG-13, with Black Bear and Amazon International behind it, and that filming starts in seven weeks in London and Malta. After confirming that he’ll be “playing Malta for Malta,” Leitch went on to explain how the project finally came together:
“This thing is one of those beautiful moments where you say, ‘I’m lucky, and I get to work a lot.’ Jason and I had a window of time. We both had a window, and we had had this script presented to us a while back, probably two years ago now, and Jason and I talked about it, and we thought it’d be really fun to do. It was a really fun concept, and we were just trying to find windows that lined up. He called me in January, and I was posting How to Rob a Bank, and he’s like, ‘I got a window. My other movie fell through. I have a window in summer. Could you make it work?’ And I’m like, ‘Let me think.’ I’m like, man, I’m just finishing post, and I have something potentially in late fall. Can I squeeze that in? I thought about it for like five minutes, and I’m like, ‘You know what? Screw it. Yes! We’ll figure it out. Let’s go.’”
For Statham fans, the most interesting part may be the tone Leitch is promising. He told Collider, “It’s a small movie, and it’s really a sweet, funny action. There’ll be a lot of action, but you’re going to see Jason be fun. I think that’s what’s really exciting. Jason has such great comedic instincts, and he gets to do it a lot. He did it in Spy, but he doesn’t get to do it a lot, is what I should say, and I think people want to see him in those roles. We have a real opportunity here to give people something fun and interesting and escapist, and again, with a heart.” He also revealed the shoot will be a short one, adding, “It’s a short shoot. Again, it’s not far off from How to Rob a Bank. It’s a 45-day shoot.”
There’s still no cast beyond Statham, but honestly, the pitch already sells itself: Jason Statham, playing Jason Statham, steals a kid’s bike, and chaos follows. That title was always good. Now the movie actually sounds like it will be, too. Stay tuned at Collider for further updates and more on How to Rob a Bank.
