Movies
Jean-Claude Van Damme Explains Why He Actually Exited ‘Predator’
One of the coolest “what ifs” in movie history is that Jean-Claude Van Damme was nearly the Predator in John McTiernan‘s 1987 sci-fi horror classic. In fact, he was the actual alien creature before exiting the project for one of a handful of possible reasons. While everyone involved has their version of the story (I’ve heard it was because he wanted to get fired feeling he was about to become a star with Bloodsport), JCVD offers his truth in a fun new interview with THR. His explanation? He was constantly being put in danger.
“I came to the studio and they made me run around and I jump, and they say, ‘This guy can jump very high so yes, he’s in,'” said Van Damme about getting cast.
He had trouble breathing. He was becoming overheated. And that was just the start of his problems.
“I go to this place and they put me on sticks and woods and they start to melt all the cast on me, and it’s boiling hot. I like to breathe, you know? They’ve got to do my head and everything.”
“I’ve got my friend next to me and I said, ‘Man, I ain’t going to make it,'” he continues. “They put in my mouth a tube, and at that time I was just a stand guy. I was covered in that cast for at least 20 minutes.” They told him, “‘If you feel like you cannot breathe, just go like this with your finger [gestures with his finger] and I’ll put it away from you.” They wanted him to go five more minutes but he could not.
The final costume saw Van Damme standing on stilts, explains the site. The costume also reduced his mobility so much that he felt the stunts the production demanded of him would be too dangerous.
“My feet were in these casts. When Joel [Silver] asked me to jump, I knew it was going to be a bad one. I said, ‘This is impossible, Joel. I think we’re going to have a problem.’ Then he replaced me,” recalls the 58-year-old actor. “The guy who did my stunts, something bad happened to him and then they did the more safe outfit.”
“I was happy that I listened to my intuition.”
Here’s the full video which carries all sorts of fun stories directly from JCVD’s own mouth.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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