Thanks, cool show!
I have to bring a few nuances though:
- Dolph's involvement in promoting pentathlon and being the 1996 Olympics team leader came 2-3 years after the production on the request of the US team (who had trained him for the film) because the event was threatened to be canceled from the games after Atlanta.
- The shooting script was not a last minute decision before camera rolled, it was locked before pre-pproduction officially began. And I think it was Lundgren who might have been pushing for this draft because he wanted to make it more of a sport-drama thriller medleying a ROCKY type feel with a movie like MARATHON MAN.
The writer of the shooting draft is named James Wilson, who was apparently credited in his team on MOTU, so Dolph probably brought him on, whereas previous writers where friends from producer Martin Caan...
(I now see it could even almost be seen as a pseudo DRAGO spin-off with a different character and sport)
- Part of the budget restraints came fro the lack of interest or gross made from the distributors pre-sales
- As for the romance with Julia (Renée Coleman), in the years from JOSHUA TREE / ARMY OF ONE to THE SHOOTER or even SILENT TRIGGER, Dolph was very keen on making more romantic films, having more than just sex or flings relationships, I mean basically in the pre- and post-JOHNNY MNEMONIC years, he was aiming at branching out to more serious, auteurs or art-house films. This was also the years he was doing small plays in New York and had the project to set up a play or film adaptation of the classic 19th Swedish play MISS JULIE (by writer August Strindberg).
- The shooting script ends just like the finished movie, no omitted scenes following the killing of Müeller and Dolph seen as being relieved.