Gina Carano's Knockout Will Be Like Old School James Bond

[Blowfeld]

September 30, 2009
Source: Empire
by Alex Billington

Although I know not everyone is as big of a fan of Steven Soderbergh as I, he's still a great director that makes solid films. Now that The Informant is out, he's starting prep on a spy thriller called Knockout that will star real life MMA fighter, and hottie, Gina Carano. Empire just talked with Soderbergh and learned that it may be pretty badass, like an old school James Bond flick. He describes Knockout as "a combination of a Bond movie and Point Blank," though, "more on the scale of From Russia With Love than, you know, Quantum Of Solace… Something where the characters and the story are as prominent as the action stuff."

When this was originally announced, it was described as a "flat out action movie" that follows a tough girl from the wrong side of the tracks who takes the opportunity to use a special set of skills in a more focused, constructive environment. Soderbergh, as he also said in our interview, explained that he chose Carano because there's no one else like her. "I'd been wanting to make a spy action film for a while, but hadn't really determined what I was going to bring to it that would distinguish it from the traditional approach. Then I thought, 'Why don't I just build it around her? She can actually break people in half.' I was interested in doing something ultra-realistic."

"My desire is for it to be a very realistic portrayal of somebody who gets hired, as these people do, by the government, to go and perform certain duties that it would be inappropriate to give to the military," says Soderbergh. "That could be anything from a hostage-grab to surveillance to an actual killing." So he's going for realism, but mixing it with Point Blank and James Bond? I'm in for that, especially with a beautiful and powerful actress/fighter like Carano (as seen above). Shooting is supposed to start early next year, so we can expect to see Knockout by this time in 2010 or maybe early 2011, depending on Soderbergh's schedule.

[FormerBondFan]

Sounds interesting.