James Caan to Chris Klein?
You know the movie is in trouble when you have Chris Klein playing Jonanthan. Whose brilliant idea was that?
shareThey originally had Keanu Reeves.
But he was right in bailing after reading the horrendous script.
Seriously...”instant” rating jumps?
Fucking stupid.
This screenplay was written by a RETARD.
After McTiernan rejected what was purported to be a script as good as the original with improvements.
And the rink design team were retards as well.
They shoulda just used an indoor bike racing rink which is bigger than the original...and just added the traditional magnetic hole/hoops.
Yeah, I heard McTiernan rejected the original script that was better. I can't believe he directed such a bad movie. This was the same guy that directed Predator and Die Hard? I also agree on the rink design. Everything was stupid. The ending was stupid too. In the original, Jonathan was violent, but he didn't go on a killing spree like he did in the remake. They got so carried away with the ending with the blood and violence. The slow motion in the end was stupid too. Also, they couldn't even give us a good love scene with Rebecca Romijn. It was about two seconds long.
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I agree completely. Especially on Chris Klein being believable as a tough guy. It's such a joke. This was John McTiernan at his worst. I don't know what he was thinking. I was just watching the original Rollerball recently. For some strange reason they keep showing both versions back to back on TV. I can't believe what a train wreck the movie turned out to be. I have to put most of the blame on McTiernan. If he rejected a better script in favor of the stupid shit we got in the end, it's on him. But Chris Klein would've been my last choice to play Jonathan. Actually no, I wouldn't have even considered him. What made them think he would've been a good choice?
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You know what? I completely agree with everything you said.
sharehttps://lebeauleblog.com/2015/05/08/what-the-hell-happened-to-john-mctiernan/6/
Starring Chris Klein from American Pie, Jean Reno, LL Cool J, and Rebecca Romijn, this action film was a remake of a 1970 sci-fi film. The remake and the original are both set in a mildly-dystopian future, where the sport of Rollerball is hugely popular. The game is a gorier version of hockey, in essence. As is often the case in such tales, a revolution is launched as the climax, and the frown of dystopia is turned upside-down.share
The studio had zero faith in the film, dumping it in February like spoiled milk down the sink. At $70 million dollars budgeted, the movie had little chance of shocking the finance department and entering the black. Accountants were proven right when Rollerball barely made back a third of its production budget.
Critics weren’t kind: the film has a 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert called it an “an incoherent mess, a jumble of footage in search of plot, meaning, rhythm and sense”, and Trevor Johnson of Time Out referred to it as “a checklist shaped by a 15-year-old”.
McTiernan wasn’t blamed for Rollerball and its dismal failure, which is of course positive but also indicated the state of his career. He was a gun-for-hire, no longer can pick and choose, much less develop projects of his own.
I think Tom Cruise would've been a good choice for Jonathan.
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