UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING (John Hyams, 2012)

[savagesketch]

Having JC and Dolph for only a week, the initial stars of the franchise, always seemed a little fishy to me... I understand that they were needed to sell the film, but having them in cameos, especially in what looks to be bizarre "zombiefied" renditions doesn't feel very true to the series... I said it before, but Adkins and Arlovski are great to carry the film as is... If this is the way we'll see the two franchise leads, perhaps Hyams should have either left JC and Dolph out entirely, or drop the Unisol title and go with another script... Interested to see further snapshots of production...

[Jox]

Wait to see the film, everybody is scared of Dolph's and JC minimal parts because we've been cheated so many times with DTV sequels and such, but wait to see the finished movie. We don't know much yet but I feel Hyams has a few tricks and twists in store for us that are not gratuitous and don't have anything with selling the movie. For once it seems the director was left alone to create the sequel he wanted, and again from the little he said (and I now can tell he's the kind to be a big mouth so he's for real when he says something) it sounds that he found a way to reboot the franchise in a way that may redefine the concept of sequels. (I don't think Arlovski has a huge part either btw)

[Dragonrage]

From JC's facebook...

[leigh1975]

JC looks... out there! Whoa! To be fair, Hyams did say he was going for a suspense/horror vibe months ago... I'm a little interested in this now, it's good to shake things up and not just do cut-and-paste sequels. Although seeing as US3 was so grim, and also seeing as this one seems to make the franchise hero (JC) so horrific (and, i guess, maybe even villainous this time), the likelyhood that we are going to get the fun but hard Andrew Scott of US1 seems even farther away than the last film...

[Jox]

He seems to pushing the Frankenstein / zombie concept to the limit, which could be awesomely awesome... That's why VD fans should stop assume everything, bitching and moaning about every little detail. Trust Hyams and just wait and see until we see the movie, because this should have a few more surprises (if they're not spoiled too soon).

[leigh1975]

Let's be honest, Foresight are a commercial release company, they want to make as big a buck as they can. They won't risk butchering a franchise like this (which must have cost a pretty penny to secure the rights to in DTV land), they arent going to risk losing coin unless they have faith in the project. Plus, they had to virtually twist JC's arm to do the last movie, and he seemed quite willing to come back for this one, which he didnt have to do. Call it director trust (he just did Dragon Eyes with Hyams and Joel Silver), or maybe he just likes this project more than the last. I am actually more intrigued in this than I was US3!

[Jox]

Hyams already took us by surprised with US3, which we weren't looking for and didn't look so great from the set photos, and he's trying to do the same. I haven't seen THE SMASHING MACHINE, his documentary about MMA but I hear it's great and as enjoyable as a fictional movie. This guy is on a roll. Timing isn't good as of now but if he wants to, Stallone could hire him in a couple of years for THE EXPENDABLES 3...

[leigh1975]

I think, given as it was a DTV, Hyams showed some great vision. The battle scenes are confident, and that one-shot take of VD taking out multiple baddies in the building is confident stuff. Sounds like he could be an interesting guy for you to talk to, Jox! BTW, is his father the DP on the this one too?

[Jox]

Yeah I'm waiting for this film to be finished and released to talk to him about the two films. His father Peter Hyams is not the DP this time. The DP is Yaron Levy, he did lots of smaller films, the last one he did was Michael Jay White's directorial debuts NEVER BACK DOWN 2, but I hear he's promising, we'll see...

[leigh1975]

He did some DP work on the original SAW???? That's a horror heavy hitter of a film. Interesting...

http://www.dpron.com/Yaron_Levy.html

[Scorpio]

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/2489 ... 947274.jpg

Photos thanks to http://jcvd.freeforums.org

[Jox]

Chat with Arlovski June 9, 2011 from 8pm to 9pm CST on http://arlovski.com/

on location pic


funny how VD's bald look now makes his fans react like when Dolph shaved for DIAMOND DOGS. He can shoot his aborted project THE MONK now

[Dragonrage]

Another one from facebook...like I said on VDF, IMO he really looks bad ass on this picture...love the look!!

[Jox]

Adkins stweeted

Gonna lay it down with the Dolphster!

Pic from Barry Evans

[T100]

thanx for the pic jox, its gonna be great seeing these 2 giants battle it out