Dito Montiel’s ‘Fighting’ opens in theaters

Rogue Pictures is rolling out FIGHTING, the blandly-titled underground fight film starring STEP UP star Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard, in 2,310 theaters across the U.S. on Friday. The film is scoring 35 percent among 34 advance screening critics at Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing and that score seems to be dropping. (When I started writing this article it was 41 percent.)

In the film, Tatum plays a New York counterfeiter who is introduced to the world of bare-knuckle, underground fighting by a hustler (Howard), who becomes his manager in a brawling circuit.

The film is not being likened to NEVER BACK DOWN, the mainstream 2008 MMA poster film. Rather, FIGHTING is being characterized as an indie drama with some ugly and violent bare-knuckle fighting action with a whole lot of nothing in between.

Fight choreography is provided by FAST & FURIOUS stunt coordinator Mike Gunther. He was also the fight arranger on ELEKTRA (2005), a movie I still cannot bring myself to watch, let alone review but that’s not Gunther’s fault.

The film is co-written and directed by Dito Montiel, who seems to be leaning towards action filmmaking with Tatum as his favorite leading man. In addition to FIGHTING, he’s next directing Tatum in THE BROTHERHOOD OF ROSE, a spy thriller about two brothers adopted by an espionage agent and trained as killers, based on David Morell’s novel of the same name. Morell’s previous book “First Blood” was turned into the blockbuster RAMBO franchise starring Sylvester Stallone while ‘Brotherhood” was previously adapted into a two-part miniseries for NBC.

With “Brotherhood” being the first in a trilogy of spy novels it looks like Warner Bros. is attempting to build up a successful action franchise in the tradition of MGM/Sony Pictures’ James Bond franchise and Universal’s Jason Bourne franchise. I guess every major studio has to have a spy franchise of their own.

There is also a rumor floating around that Montiel is developing a film centered on parkour. With Luc Besson working on a Hollywood remake of DISTRICT B13, the U.S. could find itself hit with a barrage of free-running movies in the next few years. I suppose it doesn’t hurt to plan ahead if this whole MMA and underground fight thing doesn’t light up the box office the way producers hope it will.

Sources: Box Office Mojo, Variety via JoBlo.com