MELTDOWN (Yves Simoneau, 1992/ John Dahl, 1994) (unproduced)

[bomaz]

but .... meltdown is a development hell victim, isn't it ? i thought they gave up 6 or 7 years ago !!

[Tom]

Is that a recent article? If I remember correctly it went into limbo, and a few years back Casper Van Dien did it instead. I don't think this one is gonna happen folks. Jox will almost certainly have the scooop on this one.

[Jox]

This article is more than 10 years old! (and Dahl came a long way since Red Rock West and The Last Seduction back in 1994)

The project never got made in the end although it has been brought beck on the burner several times.

http://www.dolph-ultimate.com/dolph-in/meltdown.html

Incidentally, Casper Van Dien made another movie called "Meltdown: Days of Destruction" which has NOTHING to do with this old MELTDOWN.

[Warchild]

Meltdown was made in 2006, Casper Van Dien from Starship Troopers played the role Dolph was supposed to be.

[The_Canadian]

Ummm... Warchild? Maybe you should just quickly read Jox's post right above and reconsider that statement.

[Warchild]

Ohh, so confusing, So the Meltdown project that Dolph was supposed to do or be in as nothing to do with Meltdown starring Casper Van Dien?? Sorry my mistake..

So that means if this movie does go ahead in the future with Dolph they have to change the title since there is a movie already called that.

[Jox]

What's confusing is that the Dolph project was then linked to Casper Van Dien and it still didn't happen, and then another ten years later Van Dien did this other project called "Meltdown something" that has another origin...

MELTDOWN was a John Carpenter script from 1977-1978, they tried to make it with Dolph from 1992 to 1994/95 then it got stuck in a legal mess... Doubt this will ever see the light of day. Watch THE PEACEKEEPER instead because that was kinda similar (it was Die Hard in a nuclear facility).

[Warchild]

I saw The Peacekeeper like 5 times, the first Half of the movie is prety good, but my DVD doesn't contain any Special Features, No Trailer and No subtitles. Just Scene Selections

[The_Canadian]

And a crappy DVD cover...

[Jox]

HunterTarantino, from the awesome B Action Movie Thread (more than 1000000 views, 50000 posts, 1000 pages since 2006) on CHUD, found this ad for MELTDOWN, probably dating from 15 years before Dolph was attached.

[Jox]

This is the dispute that cancelled the movie at the last minute prior to filming:

TRIMARK SUES MIRAMAX OVER 'MELTDOWN' DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS; UPCOMING DOLPH LUNDGREN MOVIE FOCUS OF $60 MILLION DISPUTE

LOS ANGELES, June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Trimark Pictures filed suit this morning against the makers of the upcoming Dolph Lundgren movie, "Meltdown." Included in the dispute are New York-based Miramax Film Corp., the Walt Disney Co. and August Entertainment Inc.

In the case filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Trimark alleges that August Entertainment sold them all domestic distribution rights to "Meltdown" while representatives were attending the Cannes Film Festival in May of 1994. An agreement was reached, and a press statement was released with the mutual consent of Trimark and August Entertainment announcing the purchase of all domestic distribution rights to the Lundgren film.

Miramax, fully aware that Trimark had already purchased the rights to the production, allegedly maneuvered to acquire the rights away from Trimark. August reneged on their agreement with Trimark and moved to produce the film with Miramax as the domestic distributor. The film, now in production, has moved ahead without Trimark's involvement, as was originally guaranteed in the contract.

Trimark's attorney, Joseph Gabriel, of Los Angeles' Langberg, Leslie & Gabriel, said, "Based on Lundgren's past movie success and the inherent star value that increases box office revenues, Trimark has filed for $60 million in damages." Gabriel added, "Because of the current popularity of action-adventure films, we feel that actual damages could well exceed that figure." 6/17/94

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-15463180.html

[Jox]

In 1992, when MELTDOWN was to be directed by Yves Simoneau and financed by Hemdale (THE TERMINATOR), they put out a double page advertisement in Variety like a big production.

[Krom]

Good old days, with bad distributors for Dolph!...

[Jox]

Good old days, with bad distributors for Dolph!...

The ones who really fucked this up are August Ent. (CRYING FREEMAN, TRUE ROMANCE) who took over the project 2 years later but sold the US rights to Trimark, and then to Miramax, so Trimark sued August and Miramax one week from filming, and then they sued Trimark back and it's been a whole mess that's never been totally resolved (even when they tried to get it off the ground again with Casper Van Dien and even Ethan Hawke I found out)...!

[Jox]

From a John Carpenter interview in French magazine "Metaluna" (April 2013) :

But the most intriguing project, which was never made, was MELTDOWN, supposed to be directed by the excellent John "Kill Me Again" Dahl, with Dolph Lundgren!
«MELTDOWN was a script I wrote in the 70s. I thought it was a good idea. I don't know what John Dahl wanted to do with it, certainly something around terrorism, but my script was about a nuclear fusion/meltdown. I never met Dolph Lundgren. In fact, nobody ever met me, they just bought an old script of mine!»

(translated from French)

And on old one from 1998:

What can you tell me about Meltdown?
Well, here's the story. Back in 1977 I was a writer, and took an assignment called the "Prometheus Crisis" - about a nuclear plant meltdown. It's kind of Halloween in a nuclear power plant. It's been 20 years since they were trying to set it up - and at one point it was supposed to go with Dolph Lungren. But I haven't heard anything about it. I don't have any attachment to it anymore, but we'll see what happens with it.

http://www.soundtrack.net/content/article/?id=12