It was last Fall that Warrior helmer Gavin O’Connor made it known that a television spin-off of his hit 2011 film was in the works and in talks to streamers to help shop the series. On Thursday, Mike Fleming Jr.’s exclusive re-affirmed the show’s existence with word that Lionsgate Television is developing the ten-episode series for Paramount+.
The report also notes that actress Gina Rodriguez (Miss Bala, I Want You Back) will join retired two-time UFC champion Daniel Cormier, who was attached as of September of 2021, to star in the series among its four main principal cast members. O’Connor is aiming to direct all ten episodes, and is creating the show with Adair Cole, with whom he will also serve as showrunner.
The series, titled in previous reports as “Warriors”, wasn’t something O’Connor had in mind much less a sequel in the years since the inaugural MMA drama featuring Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte and Frank Grillo became a cult hit. As O’Connor states according to Thursday’s report, it was during the pandemic that Cole’s influence helped bring about the decision to move the series forward.
More from O’Connor:
“I didn’t want to make something on fighting in a cage. That wasn’t the movie I made, it’s about a life fight. We will have two women and two men, we’re going to follow them through ten episodes and hook the audience into their journeys and they’re eventually going to face each other. Like in my movie, I tried to challenge the audience: where are your loyalties, where do your sympathies lie, who are you rooting for? If I hook the audience into the stakes of each character’s life outside of the cage, what I call the life fight, then people are going to be invested in the stakes. That’s the heart and soul of the show.”
More at Deadline.