Alright, the final piece of the puzzle has arrived.
Channing Tatum has joined the cast of Steven Soderbergh’s action-revenge spy thriller “Knockout” which will star Mixed Martial Arts champion and non-act0r Gina Carano in the lead role of a black ops spy that is betrayed by her team.
Meanwhile, a last minute addition to the cast is in the works. Antonio Banderas is in talks to join the cast playing the head of a Black-ops European unit.
On Thursday, we exclusively revealed that Michael Douglas, Dennis Quaid, Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds,” “Hunger”) had all joined the cast in supporting roles.
Tatum will play one of the elite specialists on Carano’s team named Aaron — a military gearhead-type who’s sent to try and bring her back in once she’s been double-crossed and gone rogue; trying to figure out who exactly is setting her up. But there is no love lost between the characters which makes his mission more difficult. But we’re told the role is actually relatively small in the scope of things.
While everyone is on the same side initially, “Knockout” features a lot of duplicity, double crosses and even reversals of allegiances. Fassbender plays an untrustworthy teammate, Douglas ultimately proves to be an ally and McGregor, the owner of the Blackwater-type special ops team (and once a romantic interest to the lead) is instrumental in trying to make Carano’s character, Mallory Kane take the fall for an incident that goes wrong and involves a murder. Dennis Quaid plays her father.
Tatum might seem like an odd choice with that cast — initially — but it’s a fight film as much as it is a realistic spy/action film and he obviously has experience in that field. The “G.I. Joe” actor actually relentlessly pursued this project and after working with Kevin MacDonald on “The Eagle of the Ninth,” and it appears he’s eager to work with strong filmmaking talents.
Anecdotally, “Knockout” went out to several key action male stars, but several of them were not very comfortable in a supporting role where a woman beats them senseless. Tatum will likely shoot his role in two or three weeks and then be whisked off to start production on Dito Montiel’s “Son of No One” starring Robert Deniro in March (if everything goes according to plan on that particular project). Montiel directed Tatum in the 2009 film, “Fighting” and “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints.”
David Holmes, the composer behind Soderbergh’s “Oceans 11-13” series and “Out Of Sight” will be writing the score. It’ll be interesting to see what he comes up with. Spy films aren’t exactly known for their funky scores, that is unless he’s going for a ’70s Bond vibe (which would be pretty fresh).
Soderbergh is currently location scouting as we speak and Turkey is now officially off the locale plan due to poor tax incentives. The film will now be primarily shot in Barcelona, Dublin and New Mexico. The picture is set to start shooting in February and Lionsgate hopes to have the film in theaters for August. That seems fast, but the filmmaker is rather notorious for the speed in which he shoots and edits. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, making this date is definitely feasible.