Nowadays the only time you’re likely to see Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren in the cinema is if they’re queuing up to buy tickets (although to be fair both have ocassionally popped up in proper movies in the past few years). However it seems the men who’ve become stalwarts of the straight-to-DVD action genre are heading back to theatres with a new instalment in the Universal Soldier series.
THR reports that Foresight Unlimited has announced the movie ahead of Cannes, where they’re introducing it to buyers. They’re hoping that the lure of Van Damme and Lundgren reprising their action roles as genetically altered killing machine Luc Devereux and Andrew Scott, as well as the promise the movie will be in 3D, will be enough to entice distirbutors and get Universal Soldier IV a cinema release (although with 3D TVs now in shops, I suppose it could go straight to 3D Blu-ray).
It’s perhaps not surprising that they’re planning another Universal Soldier movie, as although the franchise seemed to on its last legs following two rubbish TV movies (that had neither Lundgren nor Van Damme in them) and 1999’s Van Damme starring Universal Soldier: The Return, last year’s Universal Soldier: Regeneration, which went straight to DVD and reunited Jean Claude and Dolph Lundgren for the first time since the 1992 original, was a huge success – prompting Foresight to try for another 3D movie starring the duo.
Universal Soldier IV (although technically it’s number 6, considering the two TW movie sequels) will go into production in the autumn, with John Hyams, who directed Regeneration, back at the helm.