My Dolph Lundgren career guide.

[Tom]

I got bored and distracted whilst doing a proper University assignment and ended up doing this.

The Dolph Lundgren career guide.

The former Karate champ and black belt giant Dolph Lundgen has had a long and successful movie career, albeit one which has been something of an under achievement.
Starting in 1985, with a walk on as a henchman in View To A Kill, Dolph hit the limelight as Rocky Balboa’s opponent, Ivan Drago in Rocky 4. The film was a showcase for one thing predominantly and that was 6ft5 Lundgren’s superb physique. During the 80’s the muscular action man was becoming popular. First starting with Sly Stallone, and well and truly being cemented by the beginning of Arnold Schwarzeneggers stardom. When Rocky 4 arrived to huge box office receipts, Lundgren found himself a huge star. Since that film Lundgren has become a leading man in the action genre doing some cult movies along the way. He commands a million plus pay-checkper film and has fans all round the world. Yet something, as with many action stars who launched in the 80’s, is still clear, Lundgren never hit the heights of the big boys. Some way below Arnold, Sly and Willis, fell Seagal and Van Damme, and below them it was Lundgren, in terms of his theatrical movie career. So why did the 240 pound man mountain and martial arts expert not make it? Arguably he is the most classically handsome of the bunch, and although not a great actor, was on a par with Van Damme and Seagal at least. Something didn’t quite happen for Lundgren.

While Seagal and Van Damme launched, at more or less the same time, a few years after Lundgren’s breakout, they had the advantage of having had star vehicles that turned into cult hits and box office hits. Van Damme starred in Bloodsport which gained a big following, while Seagal had Above The Law. Both films were big box office smashes considering their meagre budgets (Bloodsport in particular was very cheap) Lundgren’s first leading role however was in the ill conceived and poorly executed Masters Of The Universe, a film far more high profile and production than the ones by Van Damme and Seagal. Masters Of The Universe indeed had Lundgren as 80’s cartoon icon He Man and should have been a huge success. So what were the problems leading to Masters Of The Universes failure on the big screen? Firstly the film was oft delayed, tweaked and changed, for the detriment of it. Lundgren was on of the faces of 1985, yet his follow up movie, Masters, came two years later when his initial burst of fame had died down. No longer was he the talk of studio tinsel town, doing the chat shows and the big magazine’s. Everyone tried to get an insight into the giant Swede during 1985, yet his two year sabbatical from movies clearly hindered his box office draw. Masters Of the Universe should have been an event movie, but wasn’t. Lundgren had been signed to it not long after Rocky 4’s release, however Golan and Globus (renowned cheapskates and pulp producers) could not get the film made quick enough to exploit Lundgren’s fame. By 1987 the film was in the can but for a fraction of the initial cost, with a whole new storyline, made purely to reduce costs. So rather than an Eternia set adventure with many of the characters from the cartoon, the film was set on earth, markedly different to the cartoon and toy line. Also by 87, the popularity of He Man had wavered dramatically with the launch of Transformers and other cooler toys and cartoons. Dolph’s first starring role was far from the star vehicle he, or the producers could have envisaged. The film was shot for 17million dollars, and made back just slightly more in the US. By no means a flop, but not a success. Still the film did superbly on video, one of the top ten of the year. Clearly Dolph had a video market waiting for him. Following Rocky 4 Dolph was offered the lead role in Running Man, a film that would have been an excellent launching point. At the time Lundgren was obligated to the still in pre-production Masters, and missed out on it. It went to Schwarzenegger and was a massive hit.

Following Dolph’s disappointing first lead role, he followed it with two action vehicles, firstly Red Scorpion, then the Marvel comic film The Punisher. Again through both poor choice and bad luck, these weren’t to be his breakout. Red Scorpion was troubled with political problems and caused outrage in some countries, being banned to this day (Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid condemned this film because South Africa's Apartheid government supplied extras and military equipment.). At the same time due to these problems Dolph did not do any publicity for the film and that greatly affected the box office. This was an explosive and fairly big budget movie yet the fact remained it was setting itself up for a mighty fall. The films attempt at having a message was poorly conceived and unsympathetically done, and unintelligently done. The film, although action packed was poorly received and to many, insulting. The film flopped. Similarly the Punisher had its share of problems. Dolph once more found himself with a troubled production company, New World Pictures. They soon collapsed and the film didn’t make a US theatrical release and had a long delayed release straight to video, while it’s theatrical run in the rest of the world had been fairly successful. Next came the enjoyable action sci-fi Dark Angel. Very much this film was a product of the 80’s, however it came a few years too late to capitalise on the markets taste. Dark Angel was very much in the vein of Schwarzenegger’s mid eighties action fests like Commando, Red Heat and Running Man. Pure fun, with plenty of wise cracks and action. Once again, although the film was fairly well received, it went by unnoticed until a hit run on video.

Again Dolph had plenty of options and was unlucky with his choices. On paper there was big potential for films like Masters and The Punisher with ready make cult fan-bases yet they didn’t make it. Again in 1991 Lundgren did the popular action flick Showdown in Little Tokyo, which again was very red meat, manly, action fodder. Like Dark Angel, this came out perhaps 5 years too late and ended up going unnoticed in cinemas, before doing excellent business on video. Not even the inclusion of Bruce Lees son Brandon helped the film make it big. Also he had the miss-fire, straight to video Cover- Up. Then came another team up for Lundgren, the action fans favourite, Universal Soldier. Van Damme and Lundgren both went all out in the enjoyable action film by Roland Emmerich. At the time Lundgren was the bigger star, who was on a decline, while Van Damme was gaining a steady following on dirt cheap, but highly profitable action films and he was on the rise. By the time the movie ended, with Lundgren getting minced by a combine harvester, Van Damme was the action worlds flavour of the month, and Lundgren was overshadowed, he did though experience a surge in interest. His next film, which needed to be big and needed to capture the audiences interest was again arguably a wrong choice, Joshua Tree. Although this remains a favourite amongst many Dolph fans, the film skipped theatres, for one reason or another, and clearly represented another archaic film from the tastes of the 80’s. This one did not have the novelty of two action stars going head to head, and as such failed.
Since then Lundgren has been relegated to the video market, with the odd return to theatres in some countries. A film that could have revived his fortunes was Men Of War from Oscar winning writer John Sayles. To be directed by John Frankenheimer this sadly had its share of problems and was eventually directed by the inexperienced helmer Perry Lang with Sayles original script butchered somewhat. Luck it seems was not on Lundgren’s side.

From the mid 90’s onwards Lundgren churned out a lot of DTV films, making good business for video companies. There was still the odd attempt at a theatrical comeback with films like Silent Trigger, and the Minion, however they never made it to the multiplexes and ended up as wastes of money. By the late 90’s the was suddenly a noticeable and saddening drop in the quality of Lundgren’s straight to video epics.
The budgets were smaller, the directors hired to shoot from the pages of poorly written movies, as quickly and cost efficiently as possible. These dark years culminating in a dreadful collaboration with Canadian film producer Damian Lee, whose lack of talent is something to behold. The three were Stormcatcher, Jill The Ripper, and Agent Red. Following that was an upturn in quality with the average thriller Hidden Agenda, and then a two year break for the tired and somewhat bored looking Lundgren. His hiatus was full of myths and rumours from films with names like Rewind, Inside Man Out, Straight Blast, and Legion, never seeing production, to miss quoted announcements of retirement. Lundgren made news on April 16th 2002, as having announced his retirement from movies. A dark day indeed that was dismissed soon after by Lundgren as incorrect. In 2004 saw Lundgren’s first release for two years, with Detention. Although the film was poor, it had a rejuvenated Lundgren in it. He was slimmer, brighter and more enthusiastic and once again performing his own stunts, something missing for a few years previously. He followed that with the simple yet enjoyable Direct Action, his second of two back to back collaborations with veteran director Sidney J Furie. The third collaboration was to follow until fate intervened.

As production neared it’s start on political action thriller, The Defender, Sidney Furie fell ill and with little time to enlist another director the producers asked their star, Lundgren to direct it. He did and thus a new dawn in Dolph’s career was born. Lundgren took to directing as if a veteran himself and the Defender was released to a positive response from his fans, and action fans in general. Lundgren showing some real talent behind the camera, raising the question: “Why work with so many b-grade hacks, for so long?” The film had the assured direction lacking in his movies since he worked with John Woo in 1998’s Blackjack. Clearly as well his power within the B-movie industry allowed him more freedom as a director as someone hired simply to shoot the script. The action scenes looked far more well planned out than recent efforts in Lundgren’s films and clearly his clout as a star, extended to his directorial demands. Following the success of this Lundgren again took to the directors chair and this time did even better, producing a very good and old school, 70’s style revenge, that wasn’t only his best all round movie, but was one of the best all out action movies produced in the last few years full stop. It was a proper adult action movie that was simple, effective and also had some subtlety lacking in the usual DTV action films. Lundgren showed himself adept in the action scenes, yet also remembered the low key scenes and included some nice little scenes. The movie made the dialogue scenes important and not merely fillers to be skipped through to get to the action.

Dolph’s career is on an upturn and suddenly full of promise. His directing work is getting him a lot of praise and suddenly his interest in writing and producing is also being awoken. He has the power to pick and choose projects of interest and clearly has the directing talent to afford him another shot at the big time. Whether or not he gets it is another matter, but hopefully he carries on making decent movies. His next film is an interesting departure, an historical religious epic, co-starring Max Von Sydow and F Murray Abraham amongst others, which promises to be very interesting. Similarly fans hope he continues to direct and produce enjoyable action pictures. Clearly though Lundgren has renewed enthusiasm in movies and in doing diverse projects.

Lundgren’s movies on a 5-star scale:

The Mechanik- ****
Universal Soldier- ***
Dark Angel- ***
Men Of War- ***
The Punisher- ***
Showdown In Little Tokyo- ***
The Defender- ***
Rocky 4- ***
Masters Of The Universe- ***
Joshua Tree- ** ½
Shooter- **½
Red Scorpion- **½
Peacekeeper- **½
Hidden Agenda- **½
Direct Action- **½
Silent Trigger- **
BlackJack- **
Johnny Mnemonic- **
Bridge Of Dragons- **
Pentathlon- **
Sweepers- **
Cover Up- **
Detention- **
Jill The Ripper- **
Last Patrol- **
The Minion-**
Stormcatcher-**
Agent Red- *
Retrograde- *
Fat Slags- *

[Jox]

In the missed attempts department, I think you forgot to mention the John Carpenter scripted "Meltdown" to be helmed by John Dahl (shut down a week before filming due to lawsuits), and of course the promising "Johnny Mnemonic" which was another big budget with a great cast, that I had very high hopes with when it came out, and was praised (the only lead who got positive reviews) departure for Dolph...

And speaking of the "Red Scorpion" and the Jack Abramoff bashings, here's a little anecdote I found:

Last spring, Kleinberger ran into Lundgren at the Cannes Film Festival. They began discussing the Abramoff scandal, which had just begun to spill into the international press. As the rest of the world expressed shock at Abramoff's venality, Lundgren shrugged. "Look, he was always connected with politicians, and you just had a feeling about the guy," he told Kleinberger. "I knew it was going to end badly for him."