News for July 17-21, 2000

21 July, 2000

Replicant

Many years ago I was taking Tae Kwon Do and competing regularly in tournaments. About the same time the movie Bloodsport came out and it was a huge hit with me and everyone else at my school. It starred this guy Jean Claude Van Damme who was pretty damn cool in that movie. We eagerly turned out for his follow ups Kickboxer and Cyborg which weren't quite as good and his movies seemed to go downhill from there. I always hold out hope that he might recover.

His next movie is Replicant. In it Van Damme plays a serial killer who has been terrorizing a city for years. He kills a policeman who manages to shoot him before he escapes. The collect the killer's blood and use it to create a clone of the killer in the hope that the clone will think the same way and lead them to the killer. John Joyce of Impact magazine caught up with him at the American Film Market and talked to him about returning to indie films.

John Joyce: You’re here to promote your forthcoming film Replicant, which sees you return to the world of independent filmmaking. Given that your last film was a Columbia Tristar release, why now, and why Replicant?

Jean-Claude Van Damme: Firstly, this industry is about relationships, and I known Avi (Lerner) for a long time. We kept meeting and saying we wanted to develop a project, but we didn’t pull the deal together until this yaer. I found this script that I really liked, Replicant, and I brought it to Avi. It had a really unique premise, and it’s based on DNA cloning, which is a real scientific process, now that they cloned a sheep in Scotland...

John Joyce: What’s the story about?

Jean-Claude Van Damme: In the film, I play this serial killer, very strong, very smart. He goes all over the world, and can never be caught. The people hunting him manage to get a sample of his blood, and from this they clone an exact duplicate of the killer, a Replicant, and they plan to use the copy to track down the original. Of course, the clone is born with a clean slate and, to be effective, they need him to experience the same killer instinct as the man they’re hunting, so they take me to the scenes of crime. Everyone’s afraid that the copy will go crazy like the original. He becomes involved with this woman and her child, the ex-wife and son of the cop who’s taking care og him. The child is the only person who’s not afraid of him. He becomes their protector, and, in the end, he has to face his dark self. It’s a great story!

John Joyce: So you’ll be playing dual roles again, like in Double Impact?

Jean-Claude Van Damme: Yes, but, for the most of the film, the two characters aren’t together. They only meet at the end. Also, Double Impact had the best effects possible at that time, but now special effects are much better, and so we can do even more things, visually, with the final showdown.

John Joyce: You also played dual roles in Maximun Risk...

Jean-Claude Van Damme: Right, I don’t come in and insist on playing two roles. In each film, that’s a key plot point. In Double Impact, they’re two different twins separated at birth and reunited as adults. In Maximum Risk, my character is trying to find outwhy his brother was killed. Replicant obviously, resolves around this clone and the original killer.

John Joyce: Un Image is best-known for low to medium budget actioners, mostly shot overseas. This is a big jump for them in terms of budget ...

Jean-Claude Van Damme: Replicant is being made by Millennium, which is a bigger company that Avi is a partnerin. It’s being produced together with another American independent, Artisan, which released Blair Witch (Project), which made a huge amount of money, and a film with Jet Li (Black Mask).

John Joyce: You’re goiing to be directed by Ringo Lam, with whom you made Maximum Risk. What is it about his work that appeals to you?

Jean-Claude Van Damme: Honestly, I think he’s the only director who treats me as an actor, rather than as an action star. When we made Maximum Risk, he told me "You’re walking like a boxer. Your character is scared, he’s on the run …" He really thaught me a lot about the art of acting for the camera. I call him ‘the Martin Scorsese of Asia’. After Avi agreed to make Replicant, we went to Hong Kong to meet Ringo, and, luckily, he liked the idea, and agreed to direct. He started doing all this research into cloning, so that every detail in the film will be accurate.

John Joyce: You seem to enjoy working with Hong Kong directors, having made a film with John Woo, two with Tsui Hark and now a second one Ringo Lam...

Jean-Claude Van Damme: I just found the visual style to those action movies so unique, I was the first one, remember? When I made Hard Target with John Woo, no-one really knew about Hong Kong action films. Then there was Matrix with Jet Li and everything. I was the first. I’m really proud that I’ve worked with these guys, because I believe they are the best in the world at this kind of action film.

John Joyce: You’ve been in the media a lot in recent years, but most of the coverage has been about your personal, rather than professional, life. To be blunt, what happened?

Jean-Claude Van Damme: Too much, too fast. Also, when I came to Hollywood, I was alone, and I fell in with the wrong people. I married this great woman, Gladys, and she gave me two lovely children, and then I got on the wrong path. I think I made every mistake a man can make and live to talk about it. But I learned, I got my family back, I got my live back on track and I’m back, stronger than ever. Wait until you see Replicant. I think lot of people are going to be surprised. We’re going to have a ninity dag shoot, really take our time to get things right. I really believethat when I walk into Cannes Film Festival with this movie, I’ll be back as the biggest action star once again.

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19 July, 2000

Tomb Raider

Trouble on set? Plus some casting news.

18 July, 2000

Queen of the Damned

For some bizarre reason, following the success of Interview with the Vampire, Warner Bros. decided to skip the second book in the series of Anne Rice novels that the movie was based on, and go straight to the third book. Why? I'm guessing because that book contained rock music and explosions. The fact that the movie wouldn't make a lot of sense without the backstory of it's main character Lestat, layed out in the second book, didn't seem to matter much. Their plan was to essentially combine the two books while focusing on the storyline of the third novel.

Now the main problem with adapting most books is that there is too much material for a movie to successfully incorporate. Considering that it would seem inconceivable to try and put two books together for a movie. Unsurprisingly that has made the movie near impossible to produce as conceived. Author Anne Rice has essentially divorced herself from the project while quietly hoping that Warner Bros. can't get the production in gear by October of this year, in which case the movie rights revert back to her.

Complicating things is the fact that Warner Bros. can't seem to get a lead actor to sign on. Lestat was originially portrayed by Tom Cruise. For the sequel they have attempted to sign Wes Bentley (American Beauty), Heath Ledger (The Patriot), Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor) and most recently Stuart Townsend.

Why is it so hard to find someone to play the role? Maybe because the script stinks. To validate that comment we turn to esteemed script reviewer Stax. He got a hold of and reviewed the draft by director Michael Rymer. This copy is at least the third rewrite.

This draft of Queen of the Damned aimed to be an epic horror tale, part romance and part action, that spanned from ancient Egypt to the Mediterranean islands in 1788 and, finally, to Los Angeles at the dawn of the new millennium. It tried to condense Anne Rice's book down into a two and a quarter hour-long film but was unwilling to excise characters or back stories that would make the main narrative more engaging and comprehensible. If Michael Rymer wants to center his film around Lestat and Jesse then he should excise many of these other subplots and supporting characters. Basic questions were never answered by this draft: whose story was this? Who am I supposed to care about? What the heck was all this about anyway? Hopefully, Rymer's subsequent drafts will be major improvements over this one. My gut tells me, though, that the filmmakers have simply bitten off too much to chew and could likely end up with a sprawling mess on their hands. After being an inactive project for so many years, Warner Brothers is now rushing to get this film made and it clearly showed here. (Wasn't Roger Corman's atrocious Fantastic Four also made in a hurry so that the producers wouldn't lose the film rights?) After reading this draft, I fear that Anne Rice was correct in assuming that Queen of the Damned is a film that simply wasn't meant to be. - STAX

To read the entire review, head to Stax's home at FilmForce.

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Pokemon: The Movie 2000

I once sat through Spice World. That continues to be one of the most painful moments of my life. Because of that I've got real respect for people who suffer their way through really bad movies. The kind of movies that you would consider hacking off one of your own limbs to get out of watching. Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is such a movie. 'Eric' over at The Reel Site, suffered through it and lived to tell the tale. In fact I highly recommend going to read it, here.

Tomb Raider

Why Jolie took the lead role

17 July, 2000

The 1975 movie Rollerball is being remade by producer/director John McTiernan (Die Hard, Predator). The original told the story of a future society run by mega-corporations. To keep people happy they stage the game known as rollerball, a combination of roller derby and jai lai. The game's biggest star Jonathon E is encouraged by his team's owner to retire but he stubbornly refuses, wanting to know why. In that society the last thing the corporations wanted was a star, someone to stand out from the crowd and provide a beacon of hope. Jonathon was just such a person and they wanted him out of the way.

This new version was written by Larry Ferguson with a rewrite by the duo of David Campbell Wilson and Howard Rodman and yet another rewrite by John Pogue. Signed to star in the film so far are Chris Klein, Jean Reno and LL Cool J. Stax got a hold of the script and subjected it to his critical eye.

What little dialogue there is just isn't very good, mostly a lot of yelling and cliché "villain-speak." The character's relationships with each other were all underdeveloped; a father-son bond between Jonathan and Petrovich was hinted at but never really explored so that didn't quite work. I never really felt anything for Jonathan, and never really understood his feelings for his teammates since they're never given any dimension. When one of them was wounded or killed, I could see it coming a mile away. And the very last scene flabbergasted me. A certain character has arranged the fate of Jonathan and a friend of his but then pulls a complete 180? I can't really explain this in more detail except to say that it strained credulity and pulled me right out of the story.

To read the entire review, head to Stax's home at FilmForce.

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Coyote Ugly

Find out about the real bar

Highlander: Endgame

Trailer now online