First it was called Fury. Then it became Deathgames,** **to avoid confusion with a certain Marvel character. And what's now for the time being called The Killing Game** has just landed Katia Winter as its female lead{
The indie action thriller features Lutz as a poor schmo kidnapped by Jackson's evil mastermind, and forced to participate in gladiatorial combat for the pleasure of online gamblers*. Nina Dobrev from Fugitive PIeces and TV's Vampire Diaries, and Lost's Daniel Dae Kim are also already on-hand as fighters, as is James Remar as "Tall Man" (another one!). But the word "lead" suggests that Winter, as "Milla", will be the Sonja Blade / Nina Williams type that we're especially rooting for. We hope it doesn't just mean throwaway action movie eye candy love interest for Lutz.
The Swedish Katia only moved to LA in March, so The Killing Game sounds like a decent step on the Hollywood ladder, even if it's wilfully reminiscent of any number of other films: from Hard Target (and its progenitor The Most Dangerous Game) and My Little Eye, to Death Race and Gamer.
Jonah Loop (visual FX on Collateral and Perfect Getaway) is making his directorial debut on a modest $10m budget, with shooting already underway in Louisiana.
*One My Little Eye reviewer in 2002 pondered who some of these super-rich evil online gamblers might be, and concluded The Simpsons' Mr Burns was probably one of them.