Following his Rebel Moon films, Zack Snyder is going smaller – and a UFC movie looks to be his next choice. More here.
Over the last couple of decades, Zack Snyder has become synonymous with effects-driven films. 2006’s 300 really pushed him into a career that would includes lots of heavily-stylised superhero and action movies.
With the release of his two Rebel Moon films for Netflix, though, there seems to be a growing line of thought that the filmmaker has pushed his house style to its limits and it feels like both he – and his audience – are ready to try something else.
That doesn’t mean that we’ll never see Zack Snyder use high contrast lighting or slow motion again. When Netflix recently cancelled his planned Army Of The Dead prequels, Snyder said he would be heading back to the ‘insanity’ of that style of filmmaking at some point, but for now he was looking to ‘do a small movie.’
That was back in August, and Snyder was reluctant to reveal the nature of the project. But according to World Of Reel, it’s a film set in and around the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
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Apparently, the film isn’t being set up at Netflix, and Snyder has co-written the project with King Richard scribe Zach Baylin. Locations for the film will reportedly include Las Vegas – the home of the UFC – and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
The outlet also claims that Adam Driver has been approached to take the lead role in the film, but negotiations are only in an early phase right now.
As for UFC, the company already has one film project heading for release, that being The Smashing Machine, a biopic starring Dwayne Johnson and directed by Benny Safdie. The Smashing Machine will tell the life of Mark Kerr, a UFC champion who certainly didn’t live the squeaky clean life that we’ve come to expect from most of Dwayne Johnson’s characters over the years.
There’s no word as to whether Zack Snyder’s film will also use real people and events, but either way, it looks to be his most down-to-earth film in decades, probably since 2004’s Dawn Of The Dead remake. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.