UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION (John Hyams, 2009)

[Jox]

Thanks for sharing.

[UNISOL W7]

OMG! Somebody tell me please that the links on Amazon.com don't mean the movie won't be theatrically released!
DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Soldier-Sub-Ac3-Dol/dp/B002U6CJCO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1256579276&sr=1-2
Blu-ray:
http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Soldier-Sub-Ac3-Blu-ray/dp/B002U6CJCE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1256580558&sr=1-2

[Jox]

Well that was to be expected...

[Nathan]

Have to admit, I expected the same number of theatres JCVD got in the US, because this not only has a bigger budget and more stars than JCVD but it isn't in French, it's action, it's a sequel to a cult classic and Dolph is making a comeback. Still, in all honesty, my hopes aren't that high. JC is shit and his performance will be dull.

[Warchild]

I knew this movie was going DTV because Dolph only as a cameo, Arlovski is not a big star, just like Goldberg did nothing to his fans to come out and see him in Universal Soldier 2, Goldberg was very popular in the WWF at the time and JC stepped in the ring side, by side with Goldberg's fans but still they did not care for him to be in movies. Just like arlovski, his fans don't care about him being an actor, and John Foo is not popular and almost noone knows him, and John Hyams is a newbie behind the camera, this is his first movie, so eventually this was going DTV.

JC, Dolph Lundgren, Michael Rooker, Chuck Norris, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer should all get together and make a movie together called The unstoppable Six. a Copycat of The Expendables.

[Mosquito]

JC, Dolph Lundgren, Michael Rooker, Chuck Norris, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer should all get together and make a movie together called The unstoppable Six. a Copycat of The Expendables.

Who is Michael Rooker and how did Val Kilmer end up in that list?

[Lambert]

Fan poster By Drigo®

[Warchild]

JC, Dolph Lundgren, Michael Rooker, Chuck Norris, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer should all get together and make a movie together called The unstoppable Six. a Copycat of The Expendables.

Who is Michael Rooker and how did Val Kilmer end up in that list?

Michael Rooker as been in many movies and is a great actor, check imdb and Val Kilmer used to be popular and did make some good movies, but now he is making DTV movies

[Jox]

And the new title is... UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION!

And it's been rated R for "pervasive strong brutal violence and some language".

[Moltisanti]

They really better keep that as the title. Way better than any of the previous ones being tossed around.

[Jox]

Yeah, I hate when they keep changing the titles (however bad it is) but the other two were really lame so that sounds more exciting for sure.

[Nathan]

New title is definately the best, more kick ass, more simple and doesn't sound "geeky" like "A New Beginning". Also, it doesn't commit itself to being a sequel, no movie in the official Unisol series has a number now, so the last two could really go in any order. Glad they seemed to have ignored the 2nd but.

[Jox]

Cool news!

John Hyams and Dolph recorded an audio commentary for the Blu-ray/DVD, which could also include a cool making of featurette (says Hyams)!

Too bad though it's for a movie Dolph will not be in a lot so I hope it doesn't turn into a chat between buddies (ie the cast commentary of DONNIE DARKO and the likes)...

I hope Sony will use it because I also know a whole lot of commentaries that have been recorded and never used... (otherwise we'll have to suggest Hyams to do like Aronovsky and post it as a bootleg mp3 on the web)...

[preacher]

Cool!
Once again Dolph is the total pro and just goes out of his way to please the fans and give us more bang for our buck! Awesome!

I don't mean to start a vandamme-bashing session here (see the van damme boards for plenty of that) but who do you guys think John Hyams would prefer working with again? My point is, Dolph is'nt just catering to the fans. He is also very smart about buliding good working relationships.

Go Dolph!

[Jox]

The Guys at the Van Damme forum just did an in-depth interview with John Hyams, some good stuff

http://thevandammefans.vandammefan.net/ ... hp?t=10375

Nofear: Staying on the MMA topic, its common knowledge that Andrei Arlovski is on board on Universal Soldier: regeneration. Speaking of which, there seems to be a number of titles, what is the confirmed title? Is it regeneration, is it 3, what is it?

John: I don’t even know if it was ever Regeneration, the title we were going with originally was A New Generation. Then I have heard since then, Sony wants to go with Universal Soldier 3 and which I prefer, I kind of like that one the best “Universal Soldier 3”. I know some people made the arguments there were television movies and technically it shouldn’t actually be the third one. I prefer it because I think its simple and to the point and I’d rather where it stands in those three films, people can be the judge, people can look at it and its clearly not a prequel and its not a reboot either, it makes a point of taking these characters with these actors who are 20 years older now so it is a movie that is saying lets come to these characters certainly Luc as he is an older guy, who clearly has a past and has affective him into what he is now, you will see at the beginning of this film. That past is nota specific past, we don’t go into the nuts and bolts of what happened in the past earlier movies. That’s was a decision that I made when working on the script and working on a film on that level. Stylistically, I didn’t want to make a film that was filmed with a lot of expository elements that the whole thing was really bogged down with mythology and scientific ideas. I wanted the movie to be much more of a……I guess my interpretation of it is I want it to build more of a suspense film, by getting to know more about who these characters are, not by hearing all these things they are saying or others are saying, but through action and seeing what they are doing and letting the story be more simplified, I tried to say “What are these characters, what are they about, what is this current conflict we are dealing with”. Now it is going to be a good set up to put these characters on a collision course with each other. I think that most of the film you will probably see what I am talking about. We wanted to come with this thing a completely different aesthetic and in this one embrace a degree of naturalism that is quite different that was in the first films. The first films were intentially stylized, the first one has a lot of comedy elements. This film, I want to present much more as if it was trying to take some real sci fi elements and present in a more realistic world. The influences for me are Alien and Aliens. Alien, on paper is just a genre movie, it’s a monster movie. That can film can be made in so many different ways, but Ridley Scott made them act in a unique way, believable and the settings were believable. It wasn’t like something out of Star Trek. So by placing it in a tangible reality, the movie was much more believable. Our film is not a horror movie, but we want to give you suspense, we want to have fights that between two superhuman creatures and we want to see what that would really look like. That’s how I wanted to approach it

Nofear: How did Andrei become involved?

John: Andrei got involved, because right from the start, Sony and the producers behind the movie wanted MMA fighters and that was the original idea and I think a smart one because you want to reach the proper audience for this and I had a desire to do fights in this movie that were very realistic and using realistic moves, you will see some of these fights end in these cases are how fights really end. Its almost violent that you will want to look away

Nofear: that’s a good sign!!!

John: Yeah, so we wanted some guys who really knew how to fight and weren’t going to be needed to be stunt doubled all the way and guys that would bring their own recognition to the film. Also in the case of Andrei, if you are going to bring in a professional fighter in a film, you want it ever it is that person represents as a fighter to reflect in the movie and there are certain fighters that they talked about, I won’t say the names, they were big names in the MMA world, but I would say “ hes a great fighter and he seems like an interesting guy with a great personality but he doesn’t represent the ultimate bad ass”. In fact the fighter they were discussing, my memory of him was always taking a pounding, what we want in the character that Andrei is playing should be someone that you fear, Andrei is physically imposing, he’s tall, he’s menacing, athletic so he kind of fit the bill for what his character is, in a sense, a genetic creation. From the list of fighters that they wanted, Andrei was the top of my list. He hadn’t done much acting, but he really took to it. Hes a great guy to work with. Hard working and wanted to perform all his stunts, sometimes we wouldn’t let him fall off a building. But most of his fights is all him. Andrei was great. I think he has presence on the screen

Nofear: During the early pre-production phase of the movie, PJ Pesce and Simon Fellows were attached to direct. How have we now managed to have the pleasure of your direction for this movie?

John: To be honest with you I don’t know. Obviously, I want involved when they were. What I do know is that when I got involved neither JC or DL had agreed to be in the film, so I think they needed a script to be in a place they were happy with. It wasn’t, and I suppose they needed to feel alright about the director. Obviously in JC’s case, he had worked with my dad in the past and he’s always had good experiences with him. In truth, my dad was involved before I was and when Moshe was trying to put it together, my dad got involved as the DP with whoever was going to be directing it, so he said he would DP it because it would help get JC, JC would feel more comfortable knowing my dad was working on it. Then JC was a big TSM fan.

Nofear: right, we will come on to that more shortly

John: right, Moshe had bought the script of me and tried to put the movie together, so he was very familiar with it. So then when I got talking to Moshe, he sent me the script because no deals were signed, I got talking to JC on the phone, we had a long talk about really what he thought about the existing script, I had just read it so I told him what I thought about it, I hadn’t really had enough time to come up with any other ideas, I read it cold and talked to him about it and got some of his ideas, then we went from there after a few phone calls. I flew to LA and the writer Gene who was doing the re-write. We talked about what ideas we had to improve the script. I think within a week, I flew to BG and we had talks about what we wanted and soon he was on board. I went through the same point with DL.

Nofear: it’s a little different with DL right? In the QA session in Austin TX, Dolph advised that he didn’t like the original script and declined, as soon as you were on board he was back?

John: When I met DL, he declined, he didn’t want to do it at all, he was not happy with the script, I didn’t think that…Well….. I didn’t disagree with him. I can see why he was not interested. He told me what some of his issues are. I explained some of my ideas for the character reimagining from what was in the original, came up with a new concept. I wrote Dolph’s scenes before anyone elses in the movie, because I met with him and we discussed the character and I had the script re-written and he could check it out. DL said “write the scenes and we will talk”. I felt it was important to have him on board. I sent the scenes to Dolph and through that process, he got the feeling I wanted to do something good and not just in it for the money, not just a pay cheque and I wanted to do something different with it and I wanted something interesting from his character.

Nofear: We are told that you choreographed the final fight scene between JC and Dolph which is considered the highlight of the movie for nostalgic reasons. Can you tell us about the style and feel of the fight?

John: I didn’t choreograph by myself, we had stunt coordinators, real experienced Charles, and our Bulgarian stunt guy Bobby. Great guys, Bobby’s also a real car specialist, which came in handy for the car chase scene in the film. He also had a good idea of what looks good for camera, between him and his team we would have a system, I would work out what I wanted to happen in a fight, I would choose the locations. I would say I want the fight to go from here to here, them to fall over this thing, crash through this wall and I would work it out. Between those two, they would work on a bunch of moves put them on tape and look at it and develop it. Usual collaboration. The end fight, we had the most time to prepare for. As the shoot went on though, we didn’t have the luxury to prepare that far in advance, a lot of the time it would end up being there in the gym working the moves out. When Andrei was there, that’s pretty much what we were doing. We were on a tight time constraint though

Nofear: Was there any ‘friendly rivalry’ between the two?

John: I think so, I think that they, not just them....All the guys. Andrei, Mike Pyle. They are all alpha males, all accomplished in what they do. Dolph and JC started out in this movie together and then went on to define themselves in their careers apart from each other. I think it was really interesting for them to come back and work together, but you are always going to have the dogs sniffing each other out, but all in a very professional way. There actually good guys. Have you spent time with JC?

Nofear: A few times on email

John: You know he’s a very gregarious guy, friendly, he’s not like a guy who doesn’t want to talk to anyone, or treat crew members badly, he’s very social with everybody. Dolph is the same, he has a different personality, but very professional, good sense of humour. Same with Andrei. They were all fun to work with, no one had an attitude

Nofear: One from the hardcore fan Unisol GR77 here. Will there by eye pieces in this third instalment?

John: Ha ha, yes, basically, there were certain bits of mythology I wanted to honour from the first films. There was many I didn’t honour and some were iconic, like the eye pieces and the helmets, but I realized part of the mythology and what is in these characters. I need to at least adhere to that iconography. You will see they are a different design, but yes they are there. If you’re doing a Universal Soldier movie, you have got to have the eye pieces

Nofear: We have read that a new camera system was used for US:R called ‘red camera’, can you elaborate and what are the advantages?

John: Nothing that you will notice, the red cam is 4K digital film making, instead of using film, you are shooting in a digital instead of 2K, people really won’t notice any difference

Nofear: Where you happy with the reception of the screening in Austin, TX?

John: Absolutely

Nofear: What can the fans of Dolph and JC expect from this, and what do you hope to bring to the franchise?

John: I am hoping that we are taking a film that was made a long time ago and we are now trying to present these characters in a contemporary context, and that means stylistically contemporary and to use my own taste, something that feels like it belongs in this era of film making. I also think that that film is a bit of a nostalgia piece, not only to late 80’s but also early 80’s. The music in the film was a synth score and to me was something that was reminiscent of the John carpenter movies that I loved growing up, like The Thing, Carpenter would always his they great synth scores. Another piece we used was the group Tangerine Dream did a great score for the movie ‘Sorcerer’ and taking a note from films like Blade Runner, movies influenced me and my idea of science fiction and action film making and take all the work I did in documentaries and the work I did within MMA and taking all those elements and putting them together to create a style of the film that I think is very different to the first two films, but I think fans of the first two will appreciate and maybe people who haven’t seen them will appreciate it. I hope that we have breathed some life into the franchise. Some of the powers that be have certainly talked about doing another one already, whether that happens or not involves a lot of elements to come together. With what’s happening with the storylines, we could certainly go in a number of directions

Nofear: just out of curiosity, how much screen time does JC have?

John: He has fair amount, he basically, well its interesting, because the person who has the most is Andrei as he is the main antagonist, but JC is almost like the narrative you will notice. He is kind of like existing outside of the main narrative until he gets pulled into it, as the film goes on he becomes more and more important. The last 30+ mins of the film are almost nonstop action and almost no dialogue. That’s all with him. That’s all I can say, there’s plenty of action, but we want the story to be told through action and suspense.

Nofear: John, what can we expect in the future for you? More documentaries, feature length movies etc.?
Definitely both! I only finished this last month, I am taking a few weeks to recharge and work on some short films and put my mind in another place and finish some screen plays. There are some films I have written I want to make.

Some time in the next month, I will talk about some films that have been offered to me. I intend on doing more films, and I like the action genre. Theres always a lot of interesting aesthetic challenges I like in action.
At the same time I love documentaries. It’s so time consuming though

Nofear: John, from everyone at vandammefan.net, may we wish you every bit of success for US:R and all your future projects.

John: I appreciate speaking with you, and I know you’re doing a good job on the site.
Whats interesting is, I was just spoke with Sony and there is a possibility for theatrical as far as I was aware, you often know before I do though Phil. I will still hold out hope. I have just completed the audio commentary and the making of is great. I will send you some really nice reviews from film critics (non Van Damme fans) that I have just received on email.