Woo’s Olympic gold

Like many others, Hong Kong bullet ballet virtuoso John Woo tuned into the Beijing Olympics, and it gave him a few ideas (mine were inspired by the tight bums on the female gymnasts, but that’s a whole different kind of article).

Woo wants to put aside his talents for mayhem and make a sports-related movie, and he’s looking for some of those medal-collecting competitors to be part of it. “I have wanted to produce a sports-themed movie for some time now,” Woo said. “I want real athletes to be my lead actors so that we can portray the athlete’s spirit accurately. I think [diver] Guo Jingjing and [hurdler] Liu Xiang will fit the bill.” Hopefully they will also launch themselves gracefully through the air while firing dual pistols as doves randomly flap through the background.

Of course, like many other directors, Woo has a penchant for gathering many projects but taking an extensive amount of time to finish the ones he actually makes. He’s still putting the finishing touches on his two-part historical war epic THE RED CLIFF, and he recently started developing an adaptation of the western comic CALIBER, which Hollywood Reporter claims (perhaps erroneously) will star Johnny Depp (his company Nihil Infinitum is co-producing).