Variety has an update on the previously reported Kane & Lynch film coming from Lionsgate, suggesting that Jieho Lee (pictured left) is in talks to direct. Having directed several short films, Lee wrote and directed full-length film, The Air I Breathe, last year.

Lionsgate has commissioned two scripts, one from Kyle Ward and one from Lee and The Air I Breathe co-writer Bob DeRosa, with shooting set to begin in the fall. Ward wrote and produced the 2005 short film 3 Rounds, and recently had a script optioned by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes. Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter, who are producing the film version of IO Interactive's Hitman series for 20th Century Fox, will produce Kane & Lynch as well.

Based off IO Interactive's co-op-centric Kane & Lynch: Dead Men set for release on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC later this year, the movie will follow the same basic premise as the game, in which the mercenary Kane and self-medicated psychopath Lynch escape from a prison transport and eventually attempt to take down an elite organization known as The Seven. The film will likely feature the same predilection towards brutal violence that IO Interactive has shown in the various screenshots and artwork of the game.