What The Hell Is Going On With These Two Different MotoGP Heist Movies?

Have you heard about that new heist movie that's in production? The one where a big-name action star plays a former MotoGP racer, who gets roped into the high-stakes world of two-wheeled thievery by his estranged brother? Well, it turns out there are two of them now. That's right, we've got a twin film situation built specifically for me: Heist films on motorcycles. One is the Timothée Chalamet film "High Side," and the other is an as-yet-untitled Alan Ritchson project. 

Chalamet's film broke cover last August, as either a MotoGP or motocross heist film depending on whether you trust Deadline or Variety more. A year later, Alan Ritchson signed on with Netflix to make a very similar project. Twin films are nothing new — Wikipedia has a whole list of them — but the loglines of these two movies are so similar that I'm starting to wonder what's actually going on behind the scenes in Hollywood. 

Here's what Deadline has to say about Chalmet's film: 

It's Heat meets Hell or High Water, mixed in with one of those Bruce Springsteen songs about tragic brother relationship. Chalamet will play a former MotoGP racer, haunted by a career-ending crash and a family legacy of abandonment. He's running a garage and tending to his drug addict father. When dad dies, he's drawn back into the world of high-speed risks and extreme danger, when his estranged brother, already being pursued by the FBI, recruits him for a series of bank robberies on superbikes.

And the site's description of Ritchson's project:

The film revolves around a crew of motorcycle thieves who begin stealing priceless antiquities around the world. Interpol recruits a onetime MotoGP prodigy (Ritchson) to catch them — until he realizes the ringleader may be his younger brother long believed dead.

These are weirdly similar, right? Chalamet's film makes him a thief while Ritchson's makes him a cop, but both are MotoGP heist films where ex-motorcycle racers play cat-and-mouse games with law enforcement and steal things. Ritchson's project could be an evolution of the "High Side" script, having changed studios and stars, or a separate project inspired by Chalamet's — but with backing from MotoGP itself. Or, of course, this could simply be a situation where two different studios got nostalgic for "Point Break" at the same time. 

I emailed the production companies behind both projects to clarify what's going on here (as well as whether "High Side" is a motocross or MotoGP movie), but neither responded by publish time. If anyone clarifies how two different studios are racing to make the same heist film, I'll be sure to update this.