Soderbergh goes for a ‘Knockout’

Mixed Martial Arts fighter Gina Carano is set to star in Steven Soderbergh’s action thriller Knockout. Craig Kennedy pulls the best bits from the Empire story, so I’ll skip the heavy-lifting and simply quote the quotes from Living In Cinema:

Soderbergh describes Knockout as “a combination of a Bond movie and Point Blank…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.”

He also addresses working once again with screenwriter Lem Dobbs and whether there would be a replay of the sparks that flew between the contentious pair on the DVD commentary track for The Limey:

“Oh, you can fuckin’ bet the farm on that!” says Soderbergh, laughing. “He’s absolutely gonna give me a hard time. I’ve already thought about that, like, Oh boy, you know, this is going to be round two. There’s no question. This is absolutely the rematch that people have been waiting for.”

[Full irrelevant disclosure: The Limey was the second DVD I ever bought (the first was The Abyss).] On another page from Soderbergh’s Day-Timer, he’s developing a story with The Informant! screenwriter Scott Z. Burns called Virus. Alex Billington at FirstShowing quotes that pitch as “Traffic meets Outbreak.”