Even Mel Gibson's latest film,
Get the Gringo (aka How I Spent My Summer Vacation) did not get a US theatrical release, and I would say that it is considerably better in terms of budget and cast than any lead vehicle that Seagal has done over the last decade... Get the Gringo was like Payback 2, and, although it was released in international territories, including the UK, it went to Video-On-Demand first in the US, and will shortly be followed by a DVD/Blu-ray release.
I'm afraid to say that if Gibson can't even get a project into the theatres (and I know he's got
issues) then I can't imagine Anchor being interested in pushing for even a limited theatrical release for Seagal. Even an international theatrical release seems unlikely. Nope, my money's on this going Straight-to-DVD by the end of the year, as with most of Van Damme's latest (Six Bullets is out in August, Dragon Eyes was out last month and even Eagle Path / Soldiers doesn't look like it's going theatrical), most of Lundgren's output, and almost all of Steve Austin's films (his last film, Recoil, definitely did not warrant a theatrical release...).
Sorry but Mr. S's only chance of any kind of comeback is securing a decent cameo (a la Machete) in something like Expendables 3 (unlikely, but who knows?) and doing something halfway decent off the back of that. He's missed the boat with regards to Machete because he didn't really follow it up with anything high profile enough. In fact, self-financing a low budget but professional - and personal - project like Under Siege 3 would be his best shot, like Van Damme did for Universal Soldier: Regeneration. That would not only please his fans, but may actually get him back in the limelight in a positive way. As much as I enjoy the
quantity of output we get through True Justice, it would be nice to see him do something truly memorable and
quality, which both we and he himself can look back on and go, "well at least I had one
good movie in the twilight of my career".