Jeff Robinov’s Studio 8 has picked up the action thriller spec CHAMPION that was originally written by Gary Scott Thompson (The Fast and the Furious), with revisions by Brad Inglesby (Run All Night), the Tracking Board has confirmed.
The story follows two American brothers who are wrongly imprisoned in Thailand, where they are forced to compete in Thai boxing for a chance to win their freedom.
To be honest, Champion sounds like a cross between Warrior, which starred Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy as brothers who compete in MMA, and the upcoming A24 movie A Prayer Before Dawn, which stars Joel Cole as a young British boxer who enters Muay Thai tournaments while incarcerated in two of Thailand’s most notorious prisons.
Champion was originally developed by Bob Cooper and Richard Saperstein of Storyscape Entertainment, both of whom will produce alongside Pioneer Pictures’ Robert Kravis and Karl Hermann. Tyler Mitchell will executive produce alongside Marc Fiorentino, who brought the project to Studio 8’s John Graham, who will oversee it alongside Rishi Rajani.
Studio 8 is currently out to directors on Champion, which joins Robert Rodriguez’s Hypnotic, Steven Soderbergh’s Planet Kill and Graham Moore’s Naked Is the Best Disguise in development at the company. Studio 8 has been active for several years and is preparing to release its first two features — Yann Demange’s White Boy Rick on Aug. 17, and Albert Hughes’ Alpha on Sept. 14.
Ingelsby is represented by CAA and manager Brooklyn Weaver at Energy Entertainment, and the spec sale was first reported by Deadline.
Jeff Sneider | Editor in Chief
