Netflix To Pay $20 Million For Halle Berry’s MMA Blockbuster Bruised
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It seems Halle Berry’s MMA blockbuster made quite the impact at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend, with Netflix set to pay heavily for the distribution rights to the film.
The streaming service is in the process of finalising a deal to pay $20 million for Bruised, the mixed martial arts drama that marks the directorial debut of the Cloud Atlas star and sees her in the starring role of former MMA fighter Jackie Justice.
Despite only screening as a work-in-progress at the film festival, reports suggest Netflix saw it before its world premiere and took it off the table before anybody else could see it yesterday, September 12.
According to an exclusive report from Deadline, this is the first major deal to be agreed at he Toronto International Film Festival, with Endeavor Content and Netflix closing it up currently.
Netflix is yet to comment on the reported sale, although Berry confirmed the news on social media by tweeting a link to a Variety article which spoke of the ‘monster deal’.
‘I am speechless,’ the actor wrote. ‘Thank you @netflix for believing in my vision, cannot wait for y’all to finally see #BruisedTheMovie.’
Although it’s not yet known when the film will be released on the streaming service, Berry has been preparing for her starring role for a long time, having been working hard to sculpt her body in recent months.
In one social media post last year, the actor made clear just how dedicated she was to the role by sharing a picture of her perfectly toned stomach while explaining how ‘unbelievable’ it feels to have ‘finally’ achieved abs.
In fact, it seems she’s so dedicated to the cause that, even after breaking two of her ribs on set during a fight scene with co-star Valentina Shevchenko, she didn’t let the pain stop her. ‘I didn’t want to stop because I had prepared for so long,’ Berry told Variety.
She continued:
We had rehearsed; we were ready. So my mind, my director’s mind, was just — keep going. And I compartmentalised that, and I just kept going: ‘I’m not going to stop. I’ve come too far. I’m going to act as if this isn’t hurting. I’m going to will myself through it.’ And so we did.
The film centres on Berry’s character Jackie, a disgraced MMA fighter who has ‘failed at the one thing she’s ever been good at – fighting’.
‘When six-year-old Manny, the son she walked out on years ago, returns to her doorstep, Jackie has to conquer her own demons, face one of the fiercest rising stars of the MMA world, and ultimately fight to become the mother this kid deserves,’ the film’s synopsis states.
No further information has been given about the storyline, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Netflix has in store for us in the coming months.
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Topics: Film and TV, Film, Halle Berry, MMA, Netflix, Now
