Demolition Man (1993) – What Happened to This Sci-Fi Action Movie?
What if I told you a future existed with no crime and plenty of Taco Bell? But also no sex, red meat, alcohol, cursing, nicotine, or… toilet paper? Today’s video is about the outlandish story of Demolition Man: a movie that almost featured a Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal throwdown that would have broken the fabric of space and time. That almost never existed entirely when an over-bloated budget and schedule brought a first time director and production to the brink. Finally, a movie that survived all that and managed to 30 years later become an often quoted tale of Utopian caution that draws frightening and hilarious parallels to the events of the world we live in today. But still features a lot of ass kicking and future-guns. Of course. Sometimes you have to send a maniac to catch one! This is the story of what happened to Demolition Man.
The first pen-to-paper Demolition Man script was very different from the final product we saw explode on movie theater screens in 1993. Writer Peter Lenkov was a fan of Lethal Weapon because he obviously has a fine nose for cinema. He wanted to do something about cops in the same vein and was fascinated with recent stories of celebrities being cryogenically frozen. A hot topic at the time. Lenkov connected these ideas on his way to Hollywood, hoping to break into the business. While listening to a broken tape deck in his car that would only play Sting’s Demolition Man on repeat, he wrote a script of the same title that got his foot in the door. (Sting would later appear on the soundtrack.) Warner Bros and producer Joel Silver hired Batman Returns writer Daniel Waters to work on the script, along with a handful of others. By the time Waters was finished with the script that previously had no comedic elements whatsoever, he had changed it so much that he was given lead writing credit.
Waters would take the expensive and shiny new CityWalk at Universal Studios in Hollywood as inspiration for his squeaky-clean and futuristic San Angeles. Though the script ended up as sharp political satire and a damnation of a sterile futuristic society, Waters maintains that was never his intention. He had no interest in being a spokesperson for either side. He just wanted to make people laugh. Though Water’s script only took him two and a half weeks to write, amazingly featuring not only the prediction of an Arnold Schwarzenegger political career but future products and technologies such as flat screen TVs, ZOOM, and public service kiosks; it was six years’ worth of rewrites and polishes before the script was ever complete.
During that time, uncredited work was also done by The Devil’s Advocate writer Jonathan Lemkin as well as The Monster Squad scribe Fred Dekker. Dekker ghost wrote the opening sequence of the film showing the bad blood between Simon and John in their natural habitat. In his genius, the writer noted that “If you don’t show Kansas, Oz isn’t going to be special”.
For a script like this, with an undoubtedly large budget, you’d probably assume someone like John McTiernan or Ridley Scott would direct. Hell, even Renny Harlin. Producer Joel Silver had a great idea when he reached out to David Fincher. Fincher (whose only feature at that time was the disastrous experience of Alien 3) wasn’t available. So they took a risk on an unknown: a friend of Fincher’s named Marco Brambilla. Brambilla’s only background at the time was shooting big-budget TV commercials. One wonders if Silver knew they were going to have some huge egos on the set of this film and needed a newcomer director without one.
But it wasn’t originally Stallone and Snipes facing off on the cover of Demolition Man. Oh no… it was a whole different set of egos. The idea was in play at one point for Demolition Man to be Steven Seagal versus Jean-Claude Van Damme. Much like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Seagal and Van Damme were full-on rivals at the time. Van Damme recalled that the studio wanted him to play the bad guy, and for Seagal to play the good guy. Because Seagal was Warner Bros’ golden boy. This project never panned out. It’s something we all wanted at the time, and the two knew it. Later, at a star studded late-90s party at Stallone’s house, the two almost made a real-life Demolition Man 2. One thing led to another, and JCVD challenged Seagal to fight him in Sly’s backyard. Seagal allegedly declined, and Van Damme even followed him to a nightclub, looking to show him what he could do with his big legs and karate. Seagal says it never happened and claims he could squash Van Damme “like a bug.”
Long story short, Stallone and Snipes were way friendlier. Though both had to be talked into taking the role of replacements. Stallone originally passed on the project before deciding he liked the idea of going up against his equal in Snipes. For Snipes, it took a set visit from the director to his Sean Connery co-starrer Rising Sun to convince him. This, after their original choice, Jackie Chan, said “No, thanks.” Probably in a really polite way. Chan had no interest in playing a villain.
Actress Lori Petty was originally cast to play Huxley but was fired after just two days due to unknown creative differences. Petty would later blame her inability to coexist with Stallone on set for her departure. Either way, when life gives you three seashells, you curse at a machine to make toilet paper. The studio hired Sandra Bullock in a role Silver described to the press at the time as “not a gigantic role, but a good part.” Which makes you wonder if Bullock’s charisma led to her part being expanded as they went on. She too butted heads with Stallone at times but admitted that he would end up knocking on her trailer in the middle of the night wanting her to come hit golf balls with him and that they were fine. Denis Leary was hired for the role of Edgar Friendly mainly for his talent in producing hilarious rants about society. He allegedly wrote his rants himself.
We all know Demolition Man has an insanely impressive supporting cast, and also Rob Schneider, that includes everyone from Bob Gunton to Bill Cobbs. What you may not know is that the film featured Jack Black as an extra wasteland scrapper who DID have lines in the film but was hungover and stayed home on the day producer Joel Silver would have used him. It also featured a more prominent role for Jesse “The Body” Ventura that was ultimately cut out. You can still catch a glimpse of him in background of the cryo-prison. You may also notice the voice of horror royalty Adrienne Barbeau as the police headquarters computer mainframe.
The entire project of Demolition Man could have easily received its own “Murder, Death, Kill” at multiple points in the making of the film. For starters, the project suffered delay after delay, and a schedule that was originally supposed to be 72 days and $57 million became a 112-day, $77 million project with an inexperienced director taking the blame from the media. Silver backed his director and blamed heavy Los Angeles rains where they were filming, a soundstage damaged from a fire, and the film simply being a complicated shoot.
The worst part for Stallone was, understandably, being cryogenically frozen. He described the experience as the worst terrifying five hours he’d ever had on a movie set. The scene was immortalized with multiple life-sized models of a butt-naked John Spartan frozen in pain. They were hung in multiple Planet Hollywood’s for a time, and if you’re unlucky enough, you might see one at your local thrift shop.
A subplot featuring John Spartan’s daughter as one of the scraps living underground was cut by Silver completely after realizing it brought the film’s flow to a complete stop. Somehow this edit caused a major boggle with test audiences, who, for some reason, thought Sandra Bullock’s character was his daughter. Which made for quite the reaction when they have VR sex.
The locations and toys of Demolition Man are all impressive and fun. General Motors provided eighteen concept vehicles, and the city let them demolish an old Department of Water & Power building in downtown L.A. Not everyone wanted to be involved, however. The script was changed from having Burger King be the only restaurant to survive the “Fast Food Wars” to Taco Bell because the company didn’t want to be involved. McDonald’s also passed.
For the European version of Demolition Man, Pizza Hut is the restaurant that won, because Taco Bell isn’t popular there. The alternate version can be found on physical media. One more win for physical media. As John and Huxley’s ruined sexual experience can attest, sometimes things you can touch with your hands is better. Demolition Man also received a video game, a pinball machine, a comic book series, a novelization, and multiple figures. Mattel lazily repurposed a bunch of He-Man toys to do so and didn’t even include Huxley. But still… it’s nice to have toys. Hot Wheels even released a nine-car set of vehicles from the movie.
This is the kind of marketing that made NBA player Dennis Rodman start dyeing his hair to resemble the legendary Wesley Snipes in the role. Snipes, a black belt martial artist, was so legendary, that he had to slow down during fight scenes so the camera could keep up. He also insisted on doing his own stunts. According to Denis Leary, the stunt crews would have to go out at night and secretly reshoot them with an actual stuntman. Which is f*cking hilarious.
Despite that, the director maintains that both Stallone and Snipes were equally professional, never competitive, and very respectful of each other during filming.
If you’re wondering whether there’s an actual explanation behind the scenes for the seashells? There isn’t. The writer simply called up a friend who was in the bathroom during the call and noticed a bag of seashells on the toilet. Pretty anticlimactic but I’m almost glad there isn’t more of a story there.
On October 8th, in the year of better times, 1993, Demolition Man released worldwide in theaters. Money turned out to be no boggle. The film, with a final budget of $77 million, came in number one at the box office in its opening week and held strong to the tune of $159 million worldwide overall. This was a huge success for Stallone, who was coming off the wrong side of Rocky V, Oscar, and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot at the box office. Roger Ebert pointed out the glaring double standard here, wondering why the world looked at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero as a flop when its box office was relatively comparable (Last Action Hero made $137 million against an $85 million budget).The difference was Last Action Hero had major expectations and faced off against Jurassic Park in week two. Demolition Man was a surprise underdog squaring off with Cool Runnings, respectively. Either way, it was a relief for Stallone and a hit for audiences. Like finding a beer and a rat burger underground during a fascist utopian nightmare.
As to be expected, many critics looked down on yet another action movie starring sweaty dudes who lift a lot of weights. But some appreciated the sharp social satire and wit of the film as well as the actors comedic chops. I like to think that those who complain about a blast of a movie like Demolition Man are Cocteau in nature, writing their reviews sitting crisscross-applesauce in their domiciles, sticking their noses up in the air as if Garth and Wayne just drove by asking if they had any Grey Poupon.
With Demolition Man becoming a surprise hit, you would imagine a sequel would be imminent, right? We’re not going to freeze this thing like a meat popsicle and wait forty years to unthaw it, are we? Sadly, it’s still down there. Naked and coiled despite several reports over the years that ultimately have led us so far to nowhere. It was revealed in an interview with writer Daniel Waters that Joel Silver had once asked him to write a sequel to the film starring Stallone and….wait for it…Meryl f*cking Streep. Streep would have played Spartan’s daughter, who had her storyline cut from the original film.
Despite us never getting any Streep sequels or otherwise, Demolition Man is beloved by many in both the sci-fi and action fandoms. Not only is it quoted on golf courses and in fast-food restaurants across the globe, but its many parallels to the trials and tribulations we go through today as a society keep it fresh even now. When COVID happened and we wondered if things would ever go back to the way they were, Demolition Man was referenced a lot. All the way down to the “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy” handshake becoming a real possibility for our future. Anybody remember how awkward it was when someone tried to elbow high-five you? Gross. If that thing had hung around, we’d be having sex using Oculus headsets by now, asking whatever happened to the Hunka-Chunka. I know, some of you are, but it’s still more of a solo activity at this point. Changing subjects!
When it comes to making Demolition Man a one-of-a-kind action, science fiction, and comedy film that’s as hilarious as it is explosive? It’s safe to say the crew behind this film really met their meat and licked its ass. And that is what happened to Demolition Man.
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