Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon, who co-starred together in The Departed, are getting back together for a new pic. Hopefully Marky Mark won’t shoot Matt in the face this time. That probably hurts. Oh come on, if you haven’t seen The Departed by now, I’m not responsible. Stop waiting for DVDs and get to a theater once in awhile.

The movie is The Fighter, a boxing drama about real life Irish fighter Micky Ward. Ward’s story is a fairly recent one. He turned pro in 1985, suffered a string of defeats in the early 90s and hung up his gloves, only to return in 1994 and win big. They’re calling his story “Rocky-like”, but if people want to see Rocky not just watch, well, Rocky?

Wahlberg and Damon would play the Ward brothers. Since Wahlberg is totally ripped it’s probably fair to assume he’ll play the one that does all the punching. Mark and Matt are both Massachussets natives and therefore Irish-obsessed by extension. They’ve been trying to get The Fighter off the ground for awhile. The success of The Departed has probably helped convince Universal to double time it.

The really strange thing about boxing is that people seem to love watching movies about it, but no one who isn’t a compulsive gambler seems to give a crap about the actual sport. I’m sure the movie will do well, boxing movies with big stars always do, but personally I’ve seen enough carefully controlled punching. Quit it with the boxing movies. Let’s move on to something else. What about a Rocky-like story set in the world of Ultimate Fighting?