Today You Die - Reviews

DiDa

Super Moderator
Staff member
Lawsuit Mercenary For Justice and Today You Die

The LA Times

Attorneys for actor Steven Seagal have filed a fraud and breach of contract lawsuit against the producers of two films starring the internationally known action star, claiming Seagal is owed $835,000 for starring in an independent picture called "Mercenary."
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, comes days after Nu Image, Inc., and Kill Master Productions sued Seagal for $14 million, claiming the actor caused production delays on the set of "Mercenary" and a second film, "Today You Die," by routinely arriving late on the set, rewriting the script and allowing members of his entourage to interfere with the work of crew members.


Don E. Fauntleroy mentioned he never saw any bad behaviour from Seagal on the set. Otherwise he would not have directed Seagal again in Urban Justice.
 

DiDa

Super Moderator
Staff member
This caused the problems between Seagal and Avi Lerner from Nu Image and was the reason that Seagal declined every Expendables movie.

If you look at the movie, you'll see that some scenes come from other movies. The carchase is the same one from the movie Top of the World (look at the old policecar models). The shots of the prison are from the movie Undisputed. The big explosion that you see at the end is from the movie No Code Of Conduct. So I think you can say that the film wasn't finished. They just took scenes from other movies to make the movie complete. Nu Image used stock footage of their own movies.
 

DiDa

Super Moderator
Staff member
The problems between Nu Image and Seagal continued during the filming of Mercenary For Justice, also dircted by Don E. Fauntleroy.

Mercenary For Justice

On imdb there is some interesting stuff from director Don E. Fauntleroy regarding Mercenary For Justice and the lawsuit.

Q: How long was the shooting for Mercenary, faunt?
I liked the movie, good action, but the story was confused and I wished there were more of these good fights.

Fauntleroy: We shot for 28 days
The story was confusing because there were four writers on the film and things were left over from draft to draft. I pointed all this out but the producers but they did not care. Also the producers cut scene number 101 from the shooting schedule that played right in the middle of the film it caused a domino effect before and after. That scene was the tie up in the movie. I talked until I was blue in the face trying to convince them the decision was a huge mistake. They did not care.

Q: Can you tell us what was in scene number 101? I was able to follow the film just fine, and thought it was a strong movie, but am interested to see what got left out.

Fauntleroy: It was a scene where Maxine and Seeger were to meet up and set the plan in motion to expose Chapel and Dresham. A fight sequence was to take place as Seeger left the Hotel where Seagal had to take on four guys so Maxine could slip away.

Q: Why are the producers so stuck up ?

Fauntleroy: It isn't that they are stuck up. They just hated Steven and their whole existence was to destroy him, staff of personal, and the film. The day I arrived they showed me a law suit that had already been prepared and was ready to file if Steven gave them any problems. They eventually did file the law suite in Los Angeles after the film was finished. It was settled out of court and the company has since done a film with Steven. Of course Danny Learner and Les Weldon were not part of it.
 

J.Lucas

Active Member
so "Today You Die' was deliberately screwed up by the producers...
--
Thanks for taking the time to post all the background crap that was going on.
 

Forrest Taft

Active Member
Some parts of Today You Die had potential, especially the exchanges between Seagal and Treach where it threatened to become a buddy movie.

Unfortunately, the confusing plot threads which went nowhere started to get in the way, particularly Seagal’s girlfriends obsession with dreams and the voodoo decor in the bad guy’s abode.

The shadowy fight scenes where it was pretty obvious the only inclusion of Seagal was from other scenes choppily spliced in were less than great and the plethora of stock footage from other movies didn’t help.

Nick Mancuso and Kevin Tighe helped and would still rather watch this than a lot of the movies which followed.
 

DiDa

Super Moderator
Staff member
Today You Die also had a different story when they shot the movie. It was all about the little girl that you see at the end. Did you notice the picture of this little girl on the coffin in the scene where Kevin Tighe is playing the piano. In the first script that little girl was suppose to be his daughter. And there is another time in the movie where we get to see her picture. So like Attack Force they shot scenes for 2 different scripts. In the editing it creates a mess.....This is how low budget film making works.
 

Forrest Taft

Active Member
Reminds me a lot of “Kill Switch” in the “what could have been” stakes, and in its scenes that made no narrative sense. Fortunately for the girl, she went on to better things. She plays the girl Denzel befriends in The Equalizer.
 
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