How the film "Universal Soldier" was filmed: Stills from filming and 22 interesting facts about the film (22 photos)

Without a doubt, Universal Soldier is one of the coolest action films of the 1990s. Directed by Roland Emmerich, the film pitted Jean-Claude Van Damme against Dolph Lundgren, whose rivalry led to scenes that made the film a cult classic.





1. German director Roland Emmerich established himself well in his homeland, but he never managed to break into Hollywood. Only after the success of his film “Moon 44” was Roland personally invited to the United States by the co-founder of the then famous Carolco studio, Mario Cassara, who was also known for producing such films as “Rambo: First Blood”, “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” " and "Total Recall."



Emmerich was offered to direct the high-budget film Isobar with Sylvester Stallone in the title role, to which the director agreed. Emmerich's friend Dean Devlin was responsible for the script. But the producers decided that another screenwriter would work on the project. Emmerich then said that he simply would not work on the project because he did not want to work on a film with a nearly $100 million budget with someone he knew nothing about.

As a result, Mario Cassara offered to work with the director and screenwriter on another project under the working title “Crystal Knights,” which would later acquire its final title “Universal Soldier.”





According to the original script, we were also talking about universal cyborg soldiers, although this script was too harsh and literally showed the atrocities of the military, who used fake terrorists and who did not hesitate to shoot random witnesses. So Emmerich assigned Dean Devlin to work hard on the script, which he did.



2. By the way, before Emmerich became a director, “Crystal Knights” was supposed to be directed by Scott Andrews. But due to the too gloomy vision of the picture, it was decided to remove him from the project.

Nevertheless, Andrews was not too worried, because he began filming the film “Under Siege,” which eventually became the best of his career. And what’s there to hide? This film is, in principle, the best of those in which Steven Seagal starred.

3. When Van Damme was offered to star in the film, he gladly agreed to it. He was interested in participating in an action movie with science fiction elements.



4. Many actors auditioned for the main role of Private Luke Deveraux. But the most important thing is that Dolph Lundgren himself auditioned for this role. But in the end Van Damme got the role. But Lundgren got the role of the antagonist - Sergeant Andrew Scott.

5. It was originally planned to shoot the film in Mexico, but director Roland Emmerich said it would be much easier to film the film in Nevada and Arizona. In the end, that's what they did. Except that the filming inside the truck (the laboratory where the soldiers rested) was carried out in a studio in Los Angeles.



Emmerick immediately rejected any ideas related to filming in an urban area. He thought it was too corny for action films of the time. But in the desert he had a full flight of fantasy for various kinds of action. He even managed to negotiate a gas station explosion.



But still, some scenes were filmed in urban areas. You will be surprised, but we are talking about the very beginning of the film, the action of which takes place in a Vietnamese village. To be more specific, the filming of this scene took place on a golf course, which was located within the city. The vegetation around was artificial.



6. According to the plot of the film, all the universal soldiers are Americans, but the two main characters were played by a Belgian (Van Damme) and a Swede (Lundgren). Nothing special, but just funny.

7. Surprisingly, even Arnold Schwarzenegger himself came to the filming of the film “Universal Soldier”. He didn't intend to act here, but he told everyone that he had a flair for good films. And I wasn’t wrong. The movie turned out really cool.



By the way, in the official trailer for the film, the theme song from the film “Terminator” was used, which is why many thought that “Universal Soldier” was a prequel to the cult sci-fi action film with Schwarzenegger.



8. The stunt coordinator and second director was the famous stuntman Vic Armstrong, who replaced Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian, as well as Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones.

9. The same eyepieces that the universal soldiers wore were not invented from scratch. The filmmakers were inspired by the film "Star Trek: Legacy", where a similar eyepiece was worn by the cyborg Borg.



10. An attentive viewer should have noticed that the cyborg GR-55, played by Tommy Lister, wears an eyepiece not on his left eye, but on his right. This is not a movie blooper at all. The fact is that Tommy Lister was blind in his left eye. Therefore, he had to pull the eyepiece onto his right eye.



But if you are interested in reading about film mistakes in the film "Universal Soldier", then I recommend that you read my separate article on this topic. And I’ll immediately note that film bloopers do not make the film worse, but rather the opposite.

11. The final scene was not liked by test audiences due to the fact that in this version Luke died, and the fight between Van Damme and Lundgren was very short. Then the creators had to completely re-shoot the ending, leaving Luke alive.



12. Remember the episode when Luke and Veronica were surrounded by the police? So, these were not actors, but real police officers of the city of Kingman (Arizona), who kindly agreed to star in the movie.

13. During the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, where the film “Universal Soldier” was presented, Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme had a big quarrel and even almost came to blows. As a result, we had to wait for the security service so that the employees could separate the actors.



But as Dolph Lundgren himself later admitted, it was just a staged performance to raise interest in the film. In principle, this was immediately clear, since the actors became friends during the filming of the film.

14. By the way, Dolph Lundgren’s cunning agent, who was also Van Damme’s agent, tried to promote Lundgren in the film “Double Impact” (1991), offering him to play one of the brothers (as we remember, both brothers were played by Van Damme himself). Thus, the agent wanted to make extra money within the framework of one project. But Van Damme, who was also the film’s producer, rejected the whole thing.

15. The Asians on the dam who spark Luke's flashbacks are the same actors from the beginning of the film whom Luke defended in Vietnam.



16. Dolph Lundgren was absolutely delighted to work with Van Damme. According to him, the actors he fought with in the movies only portrayed tough guys, so he had to fight with stunt doubles. But Van Damme turned out to be a strong guy and a real karateka, who himself starred in all the fight scenes.



17. Director Roland Emmerich was looking for a large-scale structure to use as the location where the terrorists would operate at the very beginning of the film. His choice fell on the Hoover Dam. According to him, the Hoover Dam was exactly the place that was best suited for his idea.



But when he said this, everyone simply shook their heads, saying that no one in his life would allow him to film in this place. To the surprise of many, he finally received permission, and the scene was filmed there.

18. Despite the fact that most of the stunts were performed by stuntmen, Dolph Lundgren asked him to personally perform one difficult stunt. True, this trick did not work out very well for him. Upon landing on the concrete floor, Dolph tripped and fell face down. As a result, Lundgren broke his face, and his stunt was not included in the film. Well, at least there is something to remember.



19. Special effects master Michael Barnett said that the original plan was to make life-size dolls of the actors that would be frozen. Well, having learned about considerable additionsThe bosses refused to pay any personal expenses for this matter, justifying it by the fact that for such fees the actors could endure a little.



20. Despite the fact that the film became a real hit, no games were released based on it. No, of course there was the game “Universal Soldier” for the Sega Genesis console (as well as the GameBoy), but in fact it was only a port of the game “Turrican 2: The final fight”, which had previously been released on the Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, etc. The main character Turrican was replaced by a soldier, the alien shooting eyes were replaced by tanks, and the mechanical dragon was replaced by Dolph Lundgren. In general, the game has nothing to do with the film at all.



The game itself was a simple platformer shooter. This game was released only in the USA. Also, initially they planned to release this game on the SNES (Super Nintendo) console, but in the end this idea was abandoned.

21. With a budget of $23 million, the film grossed just over $80 million worldwide, and this does not include revenue from video sales. Thanks to this, the Carolco studio, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, was able to survive and hold on for another good five years.



After such success, it is not surprising that the bosses decided to rivet sequels. True, the subsequent parts of this film turned out to be much worse than the original.

22. By the way, despite the fact that in the film we see one truck, there were two of them on the set. One played the main role of that same mobile laboratory, and the second was its stuntman. That is, the second truck was intended specifically for filming the scene of the fall from the cliff. And it’s worth noting that the scene turned out to be truly spectacular.