The Italian Job (2003 film) film upon which it was based. "BusinessWeek" reported in April 2004 that sales of the Mini in 2003—the year in which "The Italian Job" was theatrically released—had increased 22 percent over the previous year. A sequel to "The Italian Job", tentatively titled "The Brazilian Job", was in development by the summer of 2004, but has since faced multiple delays. Principal photography was initially slated to begin in March 2005, with a projected release date in November or December 2005. However, the script was never finalized, and the release date was pushed back to sometime in 2006, and later summer 2007.
The Italian Job (2003 film) Writer David Twohy approached Paramount Pictures with an original screenplay entitled "The Wrecking Crew", and though the studio reportedly liked the idea, they thought it would work better as a sequel to "The Italian Job". Gray was slated to return as director, as well as most, if not all, of the original cast. At least two drafts of the script had been written by August 2007, but the project had not been greenlit. In March 2008, in an interview, Jason Statham said that "somebody should just erase it from IMDb... and put it back on there when it's fully due