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Miles Teller to star in movie about Canada’s infamous Stopwatch Gang

Miles Teller, pictured in February 2015. Jason Merritt / Getty Images

TORONTO — A movie about a trio of Canadian bank robbers will star Miles Teller.

The Whiplash actor has signed on for The Life and Times of the Stopwatch Gang, which is set to be directed by Ruben Fleischer (Gangster Squad).

Teller, 28, has also appeared in That Awkward Moment and Divergent.

The movie is based upon a story at The Atavist by Josh Dean.

The Stopwatch Gang — Stephen Reid, Paddy Mitchell and Lionel Wright — pulled off more than 100 robberies in the U.S. and Canada in the 1970s and ‘80s, getting away with an estimated $15 million.

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Known for completing heists in 90 seconds or less, they earned the nickname because Reid always wore a stopwatch around his neck.

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One of the Stopwatch Gang’s biggest hauls was $700,000 in gold from the Ottawa airport in 1974.

Reid, now 64, is a native of the Sudbury area of Ontario. In 1987 he was paroled after serving three years in a B.C. prison but was convicted of robbing a Victoria bank in 1999 and sentenced to 18 years.

Reid, who has been living in a Victoria halfway house for the past year, has written several novels.

Mitchell, of Ottawa, died of cancer in 2007 at 64.

Wright’s whereabouts are not known.

It’s not known who Teller will portray in the movie. Additional casting details will be announced soon.

A number of documentaries have been made about the Stopwatch Gang and the infamous robbers were the subject of a 1991 book by Greg Weston.

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