Director Peter Segal, best known for the likes of Get Smart and 50 First Dates, has made a deal to shoot the boxing movie Grudge Match as his next flick. Warner picked up Tim Kelleher’s script in March, and have now decided it’s time to get a director onboard.
The film is said to want to evoke the spirit of Space Cowboys, although rather than seeing old guys go into space, this one has retired boxers Billy “The Kid” McGuigan and Henry “Razor” Sharp, who were bitter rivals during their pugilist careers, coaxed out of retirement for one last bout. However these aren’t guys who gave up fighting a couple of years ago, as their last match-up was 50 years back!
Deadline suggests Warner would like a fight card on the lines of Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro, although no casting decisions have yet been made.
Segal hasn’t made anything since 2008’s Get Smart, largely because he’s been developing a sequel to that flick, which has had a rather torturous journey, with Warner unsure whether they want to make a follow-up to a flick that wasn’t a big hit in the first place. Grudge Match would mean Segal would have to put Get Smart 2 to one side, which could be the death knell for that potential flick.