We hardly ever expect a pension fund investment office to be the place where billions could disappear in a single day. Yet Prime Video’s ‘Steal‘ builds its entire nightmare around that exact possibility by trapping two best friends inside a robbery.
But that is only part of the chill that comes next. Creator Sotiris Nikitas has revealed that the idea for ‘Steal‘ wasn’t the brainchild of the writers. Instead, all his inspiration came from his own time working in financial services. It was there when he realised just how vulnerable those money-moving offices can be.
The Real-Life Experience That Sparked ‘Steal’s Most Chilling Idea
‘Steal‘ is the TV screenplay debut of Sotiris Nikitas, who previously worked at a financial services company. And that is where the main story comes from. As he explained, City finance firms handle enormous sums of money through everyday office systems.
“A lot of financial services companies in the City – a lot of money moves through those desktop computers and gets routed all around the world,” he said.
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Once he started thinking about it more deeply, he couldn’t help but notice that those offices can handle more money than the average high street bank. Yet they have “absolutely zero security.” And this passing thought was all it took for the idea to take root.
Nikitas started imagining his own workplace being robbed, and the thought didn’t leave him alone. He laughed while describing it and then admitted that, “I thought, oh, this is a really good idea for a thriller.”
Real Procedures Make The Heist Believable
The real background behind the story didn’t just inspire the setting. It, in fact, made a huge impact on how the robbery happens onscreen. Nikitas wanted the story to feel authentic, not exaggerated. And he believed his lived experience could bring a realism that thrillers don’t always deliver.
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“It is completely how it would happen in real life,” he explained. Nikitas added that he had actually worked at the kind of company shown in the series. So, when he wrote the script, he followed the exact procedure someone would use to transfer money under pressure.
He said he hopes that accuracy translates clearly for viewers, because the details are meant to feel true to life and ruthless. Once you know Nikitas’s real-life inspiration, the whole story feels even scarier.
