Zoe Saldana of The Terminal and Guess Who had a meteoric rise in 2009 with box office hits Star Trek and Avatar. Now she’s in negotiations to star in Columbiana, a drama that Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional, The Fifth Element) is producing under his Europa Corp. Production should start later this summer with Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3) directing.
The Pulse: This is very good news. The screenplay is a collaboration between Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (The Karate Kid, The Transporter, Taken). With Besson being the French equivalent of Jerry Bruckheimer these days, his action projects seem to cater to guys who don’t want to escape the machimso of ’80s action cinema. In Columbiana, Saldana would play a young woman who, after witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogata, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. Saldana as a female professional? The very thought makes me want to salivate. Who else feels that way?
