We reported that the Mickey Rourke and Joseph Gordon-Levitt thriller, “Killshot,” was finally being released on October 20th, after years of delays from the Weinsteins. The film, directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”), stars a couple in the witness protection program (Diane Lane and Thomas Jane) who are being hunted by two hitmen (Gordon-Levitt and Rourke), it is based off the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name, was shot in 2003 and has had numerous release dates, of which none have actually materialized (Tarantino is a loose exec-producer – he lent his name for cache, nothing more it seems).
Earlier this year the Weinsteins had actually set it for an October 2oth release date, but has recently been pulled from that slot and will likely not come out until early 2009, if at all. Since the Weinsteins are having massive troubles with their distributors lately it doesn’t seem to far-fetched to think this thing would get shelved again. But what is surprising is that it stars Rourke, who is soon to be the comeback story of the year, with this performance as a wash-up professional wrestler in “The Wrestler.” One would assume the struggling Weinsteins would be doing all they can to use this film to capitalize on Rourke’s comeback.
The film has next to nothing as far as buzz goes, and isn’t getting much love from the public so far, but we still think it looks like it could be a decent genre-thriller, not to mention how badass Rourke and Gordon-Levitt look in the trailer. We just hope this thing actually gets a release sometime in 2009.