In a shocking fit of irony, The Canadian indie about stoner crooks looking to pull off a bingo hall robbery had its camera and lighting equipment stolen from a rented truck and trailer on its first day of production in Winnipeg.

Director Stu Stone of Donnie Darko,  and producing partner Adam Rodness have reported that their indie film comedy Vandits — about small-time crooks looking to rob a senior citizens’ bingo hall of its 25,000 dollar  jackpot on Christmas Eve — having $250,000 worth of camera and lighting equipment stolen on their first day of shooting was no publicity stunt.

At the day of the incident, The Hollywood Reporter quoted stone on the day of the crime “There’s an empty parking space. Where’s the truck? Really, where’s the truck?” he said to the production crew upon seeing the empty space.

From an outsiders perspective, the whole incident may look like an elaborate publicity stunt as the Toronto-based filmmakers’  have pullled a similar routine before. Their last movie had been Faking a Murderer, a 2020 Docu-comedy where Stone and Rodness, in search of their next hit, investigate a seedy man they believed to be a serial killer but turned out to be innocent of the accusations.

When Stone and Rodness reported the theft to the police and posted an emotional online appeal for the return of their truck and film gear, everyone thought they had hatched another hoax. “Everyone thought we were lying. Our family thought we were lying,” Stone tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Their Vandits shoot got even more bizarre. As if out of a thriller film, Stone and Rodness received emails and phone calls from people claiming to be holding the truck and trailer for ransom. “Some guy actually wrote in and said, ‘Send $300 to my email address and I will tell you the whereabouts of the trailer. I know where it is,’” Rodness recounts. The upshot was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police swooped in to investigate the ransom demands, which allowed Stone and Rodness to offer up a police report to a national newscast to prove this was no Hollywood marketing ruse.

What should be noted is that the filmmakers and real-life brothers-in-law, worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure their crew and ensemble cast — which includes Jann Arden, Tony Nappo, Robb Wells and Enrico Colantino — faced little if any disruption. “We were being good filmmakers and kept the trouble as hidden as possible so our talent could focus and do the best job that they could do. But it was quite the adventure,” Rodness adds.