In October, I reported about Zack Snyder’s next film being set in the world of UFC. It was planned as a theatrical film, with the UFC (including its president, Dana White) being directly involved.
Today, the project was officially announced. Snyder is set to direct “Brawler.” White and Saudi Arabian “adviser” Turki Alashikh will co-produce. No cast or plot details have been revealed at this time.
Locations have been locked, and they include Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Las Vegas for key scenes, so it has a lot of backing. As for casting, it’s all early, but I had been told that Snyder originally approached Adam Driver for the lead role.
So, in case you were wondering what might be next for Snyder, especially after the epic scale of his two ‘Rebel Moon’ movies, well, he’s going to be doing the total opposite of that. He recently announced a gritty LAPD movie, currently in development over at Netflix, and now there's this UFC movie.
In July, Snyder told Reel Blend that his next film would be smaller in scale than ‘Rebel Moon’ and would not have any VFX:
I’m trying to do a small movie right now. I'm not going to say what it is, but I was, like, can I just do a movie without any visual effects in it for like five minutes? Then, I’ll go back to the insanity […] I'm supposed to be writing this movie and that's kind of what I want to do.
It was just a few months ago that Snyder was hinting at making a third ‘Rebel Moon’ movie, but the response to the first two instalments must have certainly put that project on permanent hold. I’d be very surprised if Netflix decides to greenlight another one.
One look at Snyder’s filmography and it consists mostly of these big and epic statements, so it will be interesting to see him make something a little “smaller,” which he hasn’t done since his 2004 debut “Dawn of the Dead.” Then again, making a UFC film isn’t by any stretch a modest endeavor, it just feels small when compared to his other works.