Universal Soldier (film series)

Universal Soldier (1992) Directed by Roland Emmerich and written by Richard Rothstein, Christopher Leitch, and Dean Devlin, it stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, and Ally Walker. In the first installment of the franchise, American soldier Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) finds that his superior officer, Andrew Scott (Lundgren), has turned violently deranged, and the two fight to the death during the Vietnam War. After their bodies are retrieved, they are placed into a secret program in which they are reanimated as superhuman agents and trained to become unquestioning killing machines. While Devereaux and Scott initially have no memory of their former lives, glimpses of their pasts start to return, rekindling their intense conflict. Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms (1998) After the original film was released, Carolco, the production company that backed the film, went bankrupt and sold the rights of the series to Skyvision Entertainment, located in Toronto, in 1995. ==Television==

In October 2011, writer Damien Kindler was set to write a Universal Soldier TV series for FremantleMedia North America with producers from the original film Allen Shapiro and Craig Baumgarten attached to the project. ==Cast and crew==

Principal cast Additional crew ==Storyline continuity==

Universal Soldier: Regeneration revived the franchise in 2009 by disregarding the events of The Return, as well as its made-for-cable predecessors. A Collider article that focuses on Day of Reckoning and interviews the film's director states that the latest installment in the franchise is "either the third, fourth or sixth film in the franchise depending on if you include the pair of non-canon direct-to-television sequels and/or the totally retconned Universal Soldier: The Return"; despite it, minor elements from these films can be found within the canon series including UniSol clones and UniSol sleeper-agents (from II and III). ==Production==

Development The Universal Soldier franchise began in 1992 with Universal Soldier, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. The series centers on two American soldiers, Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) and Andrew Scott (Lundgren), who are killed during the Vietnam War and reanimated in the 1990s as highly advanced Universal Soldiers. After Universal Soldier was released, Carolco, the production company that backed the film, went bankrupt and sold the rights of the series to Skyvision Entertainment, located in Toronto, in 1995. As a result, two TV films were released as television films starring Matt Battaglia as Luc Deveraux and Chandra West as Veronica Roberts in Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms and Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business. The films were produced for Showtime / The Movie Channel as a miniseries meant as a backdoor pilot for a series. In 1999, Van Damme returned for the fourth installment, Universal Soldier: The Return. An overwhelming critical and financial failure, The Return contradicted several elements of the previous film's plot by making Luc Deveraux no longer a Universal Soldier, giving him a daughter, and removing female protagonist Veronica Roberts. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning featured Van Damme and Lundgren in much smaller roles, and introduced a new protagonist named John (Scott Adkins) fighting against both Deveraux and Scott. ==Reception==

Box office performance Critical and public response ==Other media==

Comic book In 1992, a short-lived comic book tie-in was released by Now Comics. Video games A video game based on the film, also titled Universal Soldier, was developed by The Code Monkeys and published by Accolade in 1992. The game was a conversion of Turrican II: The Final Fight for the Sega Genesis and Game Boy. Another version was developed later for the SNES, but was never released. ==See also==