‘Gossip Girl’s’ Blake Lively to star in MMA action-drama ‘Bruised’

When the UFC was purchased by WME-IMG for over four billion dollars, there were widespread expectations that the world’s largest talent agency could elevate the sport to the next level. Thus far, there have been few indications of that.

However, in an exclusive, Mike Fleming Jr and Diana Lodderhose report for Deadline that Bruised, a new “mixed marital arts” action-drama, is in the works, with a WME-IMG repped star and a WME-IMG repped director. Mixed marital arts is maybe the Kama Sutra fused with cooking?

Blake Lively will play Jackie, a single mother working two jobs and a disgraced MMA fighter who has been up against the ropes her entire life. When the authorities threaten to take her young son away from her, she must get back in the cage for one last chance to fight for redemption and give her son the life she always wanted.

Michelle Rosenfarb writes the script while Thunder Road Pictures’ Basil Iwanyk will produce with Linda Gottlieb and Guymon Casady of Management 360. Project is eyeing a September start of shoot.

Lively is coming off the back of last year’s box office hit The Shallows, which took $119 million globally. In that film she played a young woman grieving the loss of her mother who goes surfing off a secluded beach only to find herself in the feeding ground of a Great White shark. She also starred in last year’s Woody Allen title Café Society with Steve Carell, Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg, which opened the Cannes fest last year.

If Lively can pull off fighting a shark, fighting people should be easy.

So the next level will be here, soon.