If it’s not massively self-evident already, Zoe Saldana is set to be a huge star. She already has two tentpole hits under her belt (J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” and “Avatar”) and she has something rare in Hollywood: the looks and physique to be the next young Sigourney Weaver, or more contemporarily, the next Angelina Jolie.
She’s already been cast in several action pictures as a badass female (“The Losers”) and producers will continue to cast her in this role as Jolie is pickier and isn’t always available (ok, perhaps “Salt,” negates that entire posit). But Hollywood needs a female action star and Jolie won’t be available and young forever, so we’re putting our money on Saldana to be the heir apparent for that role (at least from Hollywood’s perspective).
Case in point, now she’s in early negotiations to star as an assassin in “‘Colombiana,” a drama produced by Luc Besson for his own Europa Corp. Remember when Besson’s name actually meant something to cinephiles? The days of “La Femme Nikita” and “Léon (a.k.a. ‘The Professional’),” are far behind him and Besson is now more of a cinema impresario, or French equivalent of Roger Corman, conceiving of B-movie action projects (and sometimes even writing them) and then having younger underling filmmakers execute them for the screen.
Sometimes it works and this is what catches the eye of Hollywood (see the 2009 surprise hit, “Taken”) and often it doesn’t (see the 2010 critical domestic commercial dud “From Paris with Love”). But at least Besson has been a longtime champion of the strong female protagonist. That we’re down with. “Colombiana” is set in Latin America and centers on a young woman who witnesses her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, then grows up to be a ruthless assassin (sounds a little “Kill Bill”-ish or at least Lucy Liu’s character in the QT pic). It will be directed by Olivier Megaton (“Transporter 3”) and Besson wrote the film with Mark Kamen. Production will likely start in the late summer.
Hey, if this turns out to be run of the mill (which is sounds like), at least Besson has “The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec,” which looks like a female “Indiana Jones” picture coming out in theaters later this year.[THR]
