No stranger to films based on true stories, having starred in the loosely biographical Bloodsport and the documentary of our future, Timecop, Jean-Claude Van Damme is set to star in a thriller that will tackle the very real epidemic of people trying to steal your kidneys. Though kidney theft is often dismissed as nothing but an urban legend, such as in the movie Urban Legend, Van Damme will kick such skepticism in its face by starring as a man “who rescues a woman in distress one night, only to wake up the next morning in a blood-soaked hotel bathtub without a kidney”—just like what happened to our friend’s cousin, after he went home with this girl from a party.
The film from Ernie Barbarash, director of Van Damme’s 6 Bullets and Assassination Games, will be titled Pound Of Flesh, in reference to the infamous demand made by Shakespeare’s Shylock that Antonio return his stolen kidneys. (“Am I not bleeding, you prick?” Act 3: Scene 1) It’s unclear how Van Damme will then provide the “nonstop hardcore action” he promises viewers if his character has only one kidney, though presumably he just gets his remaining kidney to do an awesome split.