Looks like Ronda Rousey made a friend on ENTOURAGE.
The UFC fighter will star alongside Mark Wahlberg and Iko Uwais in Peter Berg’s MILE 22, which they are currently negotiating with STX to produce.
LOST/FRINGE writer Graham Roland wrote the script, which has Marky Mark as a spook in Indonesia tasked with escorting a prized informant out of a city (Jakarta?) before the bad guys stop his clock. Their getaway plane? 22 miles away, of course. So it’s kinda like a bigger, badder, international-set sequel to 16 BLOCKS, presumably with an at least slightly less nebbish co-lead. Cool.
No word on who Rousey and Uwais (the Pencak Silat-adept badass from THE RAIDs) are playing, but if I had to guess, I’d say Rousey was the Charles Grodin character and Iko was a badass villain hot on their trail. Of course, it could easily be reversed, with Wahlberg and Iko taking on a villainous Rousey, which could also work great. I know his race is all wrong, but wouldn't Iko make an awesome Wang to Wahlberg's Jack Burton?
Whomever they end up playing, the idea of fighters on the level of Rousey and Uwais in a martial arts picture together, particularly one shot in Indonesia (which, as the RAIDs have shown us, lets stuntpeople basically do whatever they want), sounds really exciting. If anything, the natural Hollywoodization implied by the participation of Wahlberg and Berg (who worked together on LONE SURVIVOR and the upcoming DEEPWATER HORIZON) is less appealing than the idea of Rousey and Uwais doing a stripped-down actioner in Jakarta. But my complaints about LONE SURVIVOR don’t extend to its (literally) hard-hitting, unforgiving action, so I’m hoping Berg and Wahlberg trek over there with their game faces on, ready to do some crazy shit the stateside bosses and insurance men wouldn’t ever approve.
I just hope they don’t pretend ol’ Dirk Diggler can throw down with UFC world champion Rousey and/or lifetime martial artist Uwais. ‘Cause he can’t. And we know this. So don’t act like he can. Please. We don’t need to see that.
But Iko vs. Rousey? By all means.
