10 Based On True Story Movies That Never Happened

This one's just too damn perfect.

Steven Spielberg's ludicrously entertaining crime caper Catch Me If You Can is centered around now-legendary conman Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) who apparently cashed more than $2 million in false checks before his 19th birthday while posing as an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer.

It makes for one hell of a fascinating story, and one which the film claims is "inspired by a true story," but in a most delicious post-script to Abagnale's credibility-straining tale, a recent report indicates that it's actually a whole load of tosh.

Journalist Alan C. Logan's new book "The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching Truth, While We Can," which has received rave reviews from critics, meticulously digs into Abagnale's past and ascertains that, in fact, he made it all up.

Logan discovered that Abagnale was in prison during his apparent formative years as a conman, and even the events in the film which have a scrap of truth in them have been sexed-up as charming when, in reality, they were decidedly more unsavoury, even pathetic in reality.

Abagnale had the gift of the gab to allow the lie to continue snowballing, and while some journalists of the era did attempt to expose his lie, the general public preferred to believe the legend, as they still do today.

At least with the Internet's wide reach, the truth is now out there once and for all.