Ultimate Dolph

Mosquito wrote:That's quite a cast! Never heard of that movie before though.

I think it was kind of a flop at the time so it was very underrated and confidential for a while. It recently got re-released and transfered onto a nice Blu-ray edition (Olive Films in the US, Carlotta in France). Robert Aldrich (DIRTY DOZEN, VERA CRUZ) was one who contributed so much so action cinema but isn't remembered like others.

720p HD trailer (and in widescreen)

French-dubbed trailer

Here is a transcription of director Frédéric Forestier's Q&A at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University where he talks quite a bit about his career start and THE PEACEKEEPER (in French), where we notably learn that Dennis Hopper could have been the US president:
https://masterprocinesorbonne.univ-pari ... estier.pdf

U.S. home video trailer

Jox wrote:Here is a transcription of director Frédéric Forestier's Q&A at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University where he talks quite a bit about his career start and THE PEACEKEEPER (in French), where we notably learn that Dennis Hopper could have been the US president:
https://masterprocinesorbonne.univ-pari ... estier.pdf

It sounds the script was re-written to look less than AIR FORCE ONE and here's what seem to have been another version of the plot where Dolph's character was a cop (and RED ZONE was one of the working titles as announced at Cannes 1996, as well as HELLBENT under which it was shot later that year).

ISRAELI VHS

Director Fréderic Forestier just posted a set pic with Roy Scheider on his FB page, with this comment:

Un homme d'une grande humilité, un acteur hors pair, un artiste, porté par une passion sans borne pour son métier. Travailler avec lui fut un honneur et un privilège. Merci, Roy and so long !

(Translation:
A man of great humility, an extraordinary actor, an artist, driven by an endless passion for his craft. Working with him was an honor and a priviledge. Thank you Roy, and so long!)

And this set pic with Dolph:

From Nu Image's Cannes '97 demo tape, here's their Promo-Reel for distributors,
a 7 mins cut of the movie while it was in post-production

I would actually like to see this film in HD. I didn't like it at the time it came out, but it is probably one of Dolph's better movies when his career was going downhill.

At the time THE PEACEKEEPER was greenlit, SILENT TRIGGER was barely completed and not released yet and Dolph's films could still get a $10-12 million budget and a two-months shooting schedule.

And in this case, Nu Image was only 4 years old, and just starting to get "bigger stars" (than David Bradley, Michael Paré or even Frank Zagarino), so they were betting on this one, and SWEEPERS for which -believe it or not- they gave even more money and time to make).

THE PEACEKEEPER was also the last Dolph movie of that era to be released theatrically in some important countries like Japan and Italy (plus other minor territories).

THE MINION would inaugurate the real lower budgets (here between $3 and 6 million) and short schedules (23-24 days in this case), that got shrunk by the time the movie got into production (Dolph had been signed on it for more than a year by then).

Still though, $3-$6 million and just shy of a month shooting time is still somewhat good compared to today's standards... 3-6 days shooting on maybe $3 million at most... Man, have times changed in the dtv market.

For THE MINION that meant about $6 million total and less than $3 million to make the film.

Let's not exaggerate, the films are not shot in 6 days (which only someone like Albert Pyun could do, 10 is the minimum and that's rough, I've been on one like this), but between 14 and 17. Not that they are good examples but by comparison AGENT RED was shot in 14, STORM CATCHER in 18 days (and ICARUS, unless it was 21).

Thankfully, Dolph has yet to work with Albert Pyun... even though AGENT RED is about as unwatchable as anything Pyun has put out in the past decade. Good to see that Dolph still has his standards.