Haywire

[MacGuffin]

Soderbergh, Carano in "Knockout" pairing
By: Mike Fleming; Variety

Director Steven Soderbergh has committed to next direct "Knockout," a spy thriller that will mark the screen starring debut of Gina Carano, the mixed martial arts circuit fighter. 

Relativity Media will fully finance, and Soderbergh plans a late January production start. Domestic distribution is expected to be locked quickly.   

Soderbergh locked in the film just as his Warner Bros. comedy, "The Informant!," made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The Matt Damon-starrer opens stateside on September 18.

Scripted by Lem Dobbs, "Knockout" casts Carano as a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who is given a second chance to use her skills for constructive purposes. The film is a closer cousin to "La Femme Nikita" and "Kill Bill" than "Million Dollar Baby," in that it doesn't take place in the fight ring. Rather, Soderbergh considers the film as a flat out action film in the James Bond mold, and will shoot in locations around the world that include Ireland, Turkey and the U.S.

Soderbergh will surround Carano will name actors in supporting roles. 

The MMA circuit is where Soderbergh discovered Carano, a lightweight division slugger with movie star good looks. The Muay Thai-trained fighter has compiled a 7-1 record. Though Carano suffered her first loss in a title fight last month, she is considered the face of the fledgling women's mixed martial arts fighting circuit.

Dobbs previously scripted "Kafka" and "The Limey" for Soderbergh.

The film will be produced by Gregory Jacobs, Soderbergh's longtime collaborator. Relativity topper Ryan Kavanaugh will also be a producer, and Tucker Tooley is executive producer.

In his deal, Soderbergh waived his upfront salary and will share any ownership stake with Relativity Media.

"We couldn't be more thrilled to be working with Steven Soderbergh on this project, which is clearly right in his sweet spot," said Relativity's Kavanaugh.

"This deal creates a true partnership between us and Steven, where together we will make a mainstream action film with universal appeal for a reasonable budget, and with the incentives for the studio and filmmaker totally aligned," said Tooley.

Soderbergh, who earlier this summer exited a plan to direct "Moneyball" for Columbia Pictures, most recently directed "The Girlfriend Experience," a pic that starred Sasha Grey in her first performance in a legit film.

Carano so far has appeared as herself in the docu "Ring Girls" and the Oxygen reality series "Fight Girls." She also served a stint as Crush on NBC's "American Gladiators," and had a role in the upcoming Michael Jai White action film "Blood and Bone."

Carano is repped by Gersh, manager Scott Karp and attorney Gary Stiffelman, while Soderbergh is repped by manager Michael Sugar at Anonymous Content and attorney Michael Adler.

[Stefen]

haha wtf is Soderbergh doing? Gina Carano is terrible. She's mad hot but she has the personality of a banana.

I'm starting to think Soderbergh is real life trolling.

[SiliasRuby]

He's gotta make the moolah somehow.

[Stefen]

Watch how dumb she is.



She's also boring. At least Sasha Grey had a mysteriousness about her and didn't seem to be a complete airhead.

[polkablues]

This is the sort of thing that Soderbergh lives for now, though.  It seems like he's gotten bored with making movies under normal circumstances, so now he has to have at least one arm tied behind his back at all times.

[Gold Trumpet]

I'm interested to see how Sodberbergh tackles an action serial. Gina Carona may have no experience, but she probably won't have to do too much acting wise. Her in ring experience may even be a benefit to her character. Sean Connery's experience before Bond was as just an extra in musicals and a model. There is no set standard to say Soderbergh is or isn't breaking established rules here. Also, Soderbergh will likely keep the budget for these movies in check so he won't be dedicating two years of his time to these side projects. This could be fun.

[Stefen]

Leave it to GT to compare Gina Carano to Sean fucking Connery. haha.

[Gold Trumpet]

Leave it to GT to compare Gina Carano to Sean fucking Connery. haha.

Of course, and considering Connery could barely say his lines with compatency, I don't feel too bad about it. He epitomized the look of James Bond. It allowed everyone to overlook his blandness. Well, having bad actors in all the early movies helped with that too. They all mastered in B movie generics but the movies had A quality production for the time.

[MacGuffin]

Lionsgate scores 'Knockout'
Company nabs Soderbergh spy thriller
Source: Variety

TORONTO -- With some completed pics at the Toronto Film Festival still waiting for distribution offers, Lionsgate has scored domestic distribution rights to "Knockout," the next movie to be directed by Steven Soderbergh, who is at the festival to unveil his new film, "The Informant."

Mandate will be handling international sales.

Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media recently committed to fully finance the film, a spy thriller in the vein of "La Femme Nikita" that will mark the screen starring debut of Gina Carano, the mixed martial arts circuit fighter.

Relativity Media and Lionsgate are finalizing a deal that will be part of the recent overall deal the parties announced in April. Under the arrangement, Relativity puts up financing and P&A on the films.

"Knockout" begins production in January in locations around the world that include Ireland, Turkey and the U.S.

Script was written by Lem Dobbs, who previously worked with Soderbergh on "The Limey" and "Kafka." Gregory Jacobs will produce with Kavanaugh, and Tucker Tooley is executive producer.

[MacGuffin]

Steven Soderbergh Plans To Create The Female Jason Bourne In 'Knockout'
Source: MTV

Just look at Gina Carano, the mixed martial artist who graces ESPN The Magazine's new Body Issue. What do you see? A category-defying athlete, a woman who maybe perfectly embodies the term scary-attractive? If you're Steven Soderbergh, you see the star of your upcoming spy thriller, 'Knockout,' who you want to turn into a version of one of the iconic heroes of recent cinema.

"Why can't I make her Jason Bourne?" Soderbergh asked during a recent interview with MTV News.

"I'd been contemplating an action/spy thing that was ultra-realistic for a while, something on a human scale, not an extravaganza," the Oscar-winning director explained. "I've been watching [Gina] for a while and thought she was interesting. So recently I was thinking, 'She's interesting, someone should build a movie around her, why don't I blend these two elements? Why does he have to be a guy?' "

And why does it have to be a trained actress? Soderbergh made a splash earlier this year when he brought Sasha Grey from the world of porn to the land on Hollywood in "The Girlfriend Experience." For that matter, who needs a "Bourne"-esque big budget to capture the same sense of in-the-middle-of-the-chaos action that Paul Greengrass did in his two "Bourne" pictures?

"I have to go in another direction," Soderbergh said. "I have to think laterally instead of vertically because I don't have the budget. I'm not going to have scenes with so much mayhem taking place that in reality the cops would shut it down.... So stylistically I don't want to duplicate what Paul's been doing. The camera won't be on the shoulder. It'll be my take."

Carano will star as a woman with a mistake-strewn past hired by the government to put her badass skills to unsavory use in a globe-trotting caper. While this stuff has more than a whiff of Bond and Bourne, Soderbergh plans to remedy what he sees as one of the most frustrating aspects of contemporary action flicks: the logic-defying high-speed car chase.

"Very, very few people escape high-speed pursuit," the director said. "It happens, but it's very rare. So I've already researched the six times in history it's happened, so if we do that and she gets out of it, she's going to get out of it one of the ways they did. It's that kind of thing. It drives me nuts when I see a movie and I think the police presence would be so immediate. That sequence would be over in three minutes!"

In September, Variety reported that "Knockout" would shoot in Ireland and Turkey, as well as the U.S., but Soderbergh told us he still hasn't settled on overseas shooting locations. He has decided that the storyline will begin abroad and then work its way back stateside to a location where Carano's character grew up.

In terms of casting, Soderbergh has decided to surround his largely unfamiliar star with actors who are more recognizable. "I want to cast people around her that make the audience comfortable," he said. "She's an unknown quantity to the audience as a movie actor, so I need a couple people around her so when people see the poster they go, 'Oh it's a real movie.' "

[MacGuffin]

Exclusive: Ewan McGregor, Dennis Quaid & Michael Douglas (& More) Join Steven Soderbergh's 'Knockout'
Source: The Playlist

When the action spy picture "Knockout" was first announced a few months ago, director Steven Soderbergh promised that the lead star, non-actress/ mixed martial arts champion Gina Carano would be surrounded by a name-recognizable cast of supporting talent and he wasn't kidding.

Sources close to the project have confirmed to us the principal cast members that support Carano include Michael Fassbender ("Inglourious Basterds," "Hunger"), Ewan McGregor, Dennis Quaid and Michael Douglas.

When "Knockout" was first announced the project was still very much in the gestation/inception stage so the original concept — a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who is given a second chance to use her skills for constructive purposes — was eventually rethought and cast aside (both filmmaker and writer felt that it had "been done").

Ultimately, "Knockout" is now more of a revenge action-spy thriller. Essentially it's hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and especially one who kicks serious ass. Double crossed by someone on her own team, Mallory Kane (Carano)— a black ops super soldier — seeks to uncover who has set her up to take the fall for a job that goes bad and involves a murder.

The male actors are all part of Carano's special forces team. Douglas plays a government figure not unlike Chris Cooper or Brian Cox from the 'Bourne' movies. Fassbender and one other actor who has yet to sign-on officially (we've been asked not to say who because it's not 100% confirmed, but the actor is male and a fairly big name; though it's possible scheduling conflicts may prevent him from participating) play members of her commando spy unit, and one of these two plays the central antagonist that betrays Carano's character (this is still being kept under wraps for now). McGregor's role is that of the owner/guy who runs a Blackwater private military company-type group that the female fighting champion is is part of (and apparently many of the males take a beating at the hands of Carano).

Carano's Kane character is now the opposite of a girl from the "wrong side of the tracks." She's now from a solid background and was raised around military honor and academia. She leaves the military to go to work for a Blackwater-esque company to make better money and then is eventually betrayed by one of her teammates.

Both Douglas and Quaid have worked with Soderbergh before in his Academy Award-winning 2000 film, "Traffic" and Douglas is set to star in the filmmaker's "Liberace" film if that happens according to plan this summer. Fassbender is the quickly rising, in-demand actor that everyone wants to work with (Tarantino, et. al) and the director is certainly one of those people — Fassbender's role was written with the actor in mind.

And Soderbergh has been circling McGregor for some time now. The "Trainspotting" actor was originally pegged to have a role in the 'Ocean's' films, but his commitments to Lucas' "Star Wars" prequels unfortunately precluded his participation.

"Knockout" — it's still officially a working title, but now we're told that people are warming up to the name and that it might eventually stick — was written by Lem Dobbs, the screenwriter behind Soderbergh's "Kafka" and "The Limey" also well-known for his contentious (and hilariously candid) DVD-commentary arguments with the director ("The Limey" commentary is like two friends with the gloves off and an amusing must-listen).

The director has previously said the film will take elements from "La Femme Nikita," the 'Bourne' films, the Bond film "From Russia With Love" and John Boorman's 1967 crime film "Point Blank," starring Lee Marvin (which is known as the slightly arty, thinking man's, tough guy picture).

Soderbergh's deal for "Knockout" through Relativity Media and Lionsgate is a typically unique one for the adventurous filmmaker. He will be paid no upfront fee for directing the film, but eventually will retain full ownership of the film once its released. It's a bold and unprecedented move. Having just finished up his media-saturation play "Tot Mom" in Australia, Soderbergh is now in New Mexico doing scouting for his February production start date expected to shoot there, Ireland and Turkey among other possible locations.

Carano has been training in L.A. for two months and test fight footage has already been shot. Lionsgate is eyeing an August release. Producers on the project include Relativity Media's Ryan Kavanaugh, Soderbergh's longtime cohort Gregory Jacobs, and Tucker Tooley as an executive producer.

Carano has already accidentally knocked out one stunt coordinator in practice sessions (no, really).

[Gold Trumpet]

This should be a fun movie. These actors should be a cushion for Gina Carono to do well. If the movie was a drama, all these actors would highlight her inabilities to act, but because this will be an action movie and she has the experience in fighting, they will make her non-acting abilities look better because they will make the overall story more believable.

All of this speculation is theoretical, of course. Haha, as soon as I wrote that, I imagined a million ways for this film to still fail, but I still believe including these actors is good. For now.

[Stefen]

I hope you're right, GT. Soderbergh is one of my favorite filmmakers and as a big mixed martial arts fan, I have absolutely no faith in Gina Carano's acting ability. I've been following her for years and she has no personality or brains. She's super pretty, though.

I'm going to trust Soderbergh because the girlfriend experience was great, but I have huge doubts about Carano. HUGE. 

[I Love a Magician]

NEEDS MORE CHASE TATUM

EDIT: I MEAN CHANNING TATUM. NEEDS MORE CHANNING TATUM.

[MacGuffin]

Exclusive: Channing Tatum Joins Soderbergh's 'Knockout'; Antonio Banderas In Talks To Join Cast
Source: The Playlist

Alright, the final piece of the puzzle has arrived.

Channing Tatum has joined the cast of Steven Soderbergh's action-revenge spy thriller "Knockout" which will star Mixed Martial Arts champion and non-act0r Gina Carano in the lead role of a black ops spy that is betrayed by her team.

Meanwhile, a last minute addition to the cast is in the works. Antonio Banderas is in talks to join the cast playing the head of a Black-ops European unit.

On Thursday, we exclusively revealed that Michael Douglas, Dennis Quaid, Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender ("Inglourious Basterds," "Hunger") had all joined the cast in supporting roles.

Tatum will play one of the elite specialists on Carano's team named Aaron — a military gearhead-type who's sent to try and bring her back in once she's been double-crossed and gone rogue; trying to figure out who exactly is setting her up. But there is no love lost between the characters which makes his mission more difficult. But we're told the role is actually relatively small in the scope of things.

While everyone is on the same side initially, "Knockout" features a lot of duplicity, double crosses and even reversals of allegiances. Fassbender plays an untrustworthy teammate, Douglas ultimately proves to be an ally and McGregor, the owner of the Blackwater-type special ops team (and once a romantic interest to the lead) is instrumental in trying to make Carano's character, Mallory Kane take the fall for an incident that goes wrong and involves a murder. Dennis Quaid plays her father.

Tatum might seem like an odd choice with that cast -- initially -- but it's a fight film as much as it is a realistic spy/action film and he obviously has experience in that field. The "G.I. Joe" actor actually relentlessly pursued this project and after working with Kevin MacDonald on "The Eagle of the Ninth," and it appears he's eager to work with strong filmmaking talents.

Anecdotally, "Knockout" went out to several key action male stars, but several of them were not very comfortable in a supporting role where a woman beats them senseless. Tatum will likely shoot his role in two or three weeks and then be whisked off to start production on Dito Montiel's "Son of No One" starring Robert Deniro in March (if everything goes according to plan on that particular project). Montiel directed Tatum in the 2009 film, "Fighting" and "A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints."

David Holmes, the composer behind Soderbergh's "Oceans 11-13" series and "Out Of Sight" will be writing the score. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with. Spy films aren't exactly known for their funky scores, that is unless he's going for a '70s Bond vibe (which would be pretty fresh).

Soderbergh is currently location scouting as we speak and Turkey is now officially off the locale plan due to poor tax incentives. The film will now be primarily shot in Barcelona, Dublin and New Mexico. The picture is set to start shooting in February and Lionsgate hopes to have the film in theaters for August. That seems fast, but the filmmaker is rather notorious for the speed in which he shoots and edits. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, making this date is definitely feasible.