Movies

Soderbergh Thinks Gina Carano is a ‘Knockout’

By  · Published on September 7th, 2009

Steven Soderbergh has already delivered The Girlfriend Experience to the world this year, which most of you probably caught with your wife or girlfriend while feigning ignorance as to who its star was. Well, dear reader, that sort of subterfuge should come in handy for the next Soderbergh flick, The Informant!, which hits theaters on September 18th. It looks like the director will be continuing to live in the underground spy world because he has announced that he’ll be directing Knockout for Relativity Media.

The story will focus on a female spy that kicks everyone’s ass. Sounds high concept. The good news? Mixed Martial Arts star Gina Carano is in talks to star. I have no idea whether she can act (although she showed some strong chops during the monologue portion on “American Gladiators”), but I do know that she can crush people’s skulls in with her thumbs. Not from personal experience, of course, but from watching her Muay Thai the will to live out of some of her competitors.

They do not call her Conviction for nothing.

On an interesting note, the director isn’t being paid for making the movie. Instead, he’ll share ownership of the film with Relativity. It’s a new salary structure which certainly alleviates the upfront cost of a film, but it’ll be interesting to see whether or not it pays off in the end. Which is where it’ll have to pay off I suppose. In a way, the success rests very seriously on Soderbergh’s shoulders, so he’ll definitely be earning his paycheck.

On a sidenote to Relativity Media, please stop sending me Press Releases that give me black eyes. The movie tie-in makes sense, but bruising doesn’t look good on me.

What do you think? Should I get punched more often?

Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.