In 1966 a French film called "Objectif 500 Millions" was released. It follows the story of a former commando paratrooper who was jailed for his involvement in a putsch attempt in Algeria and, upon his release years later, gets involved in a heist where he is to stow away on a DC-3, set a bomb to blow the plane up over the sea, and jump out with the aforementioned 500 million. The movie played in the US from the middle sixties through the seventies (at least in terms of what's available on Newspapers.com) and featured ads like the one here (from 1969) which got me interested in the first place:
The plot itself isn't analogous to Cooper's heist, but the basic pieces are all there (bomb, parachute, money, jump out with money...) and it's always possible that Cooper happened to like seeing a French film now and again. Might be the kind of thing that a Canadian would find more accessible too...
One way or another we can toss it on the pile of parajacking examples before Cini, Cooper, et al; this idea was out there in the wild in plenty of places.
If you want to watch it it's not easy to find as it's been out of print in the US for a long time. I got a copy for like $10 through a site that burns out of print films to DVD-R which is hilarious in 2026. It's not a bad film!
