Here’s a rather unusual pairing: In one corner you have the 1988 Jean-Claude Van Damme cheesefest BLOODSPORT. In the other, director Philip Noyce, helmer of titles like CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER and SALT. Combine the two? You probably wouldn’t think to, but all signs point toward a new and improved (?) version of the Van Damme classic.
According to Screen Daily, producer Edward Pressman announced at Cannes that Noyce will be wrestling with a BLOODSPORT “reinvention”, to be written by veteran scribe Robert Mark Kamen (TAKEN, THE KARATE KID). The story will follow an American who goes to Brazil to recover from the violence he has experienced in Afghanistan who gets involved in a martial arts contest.
These deals are closed, so it would appear as though the project is currently moving forward. (Which is more than you can say for Pressman’s other “reinvention”, THE CROW, which is still embroiled in legal problems.) No start date has been revealed as of yet. We can only hope that this doesn’t take itself too seriously, because… well, it’s BLOODSPORT, for fuck’s sake.
SALT star Angelina Jolie