“Van Damme Is Poison!” — The Movie He Never Got to Make

Before Bloodsport made Jean-Claude Van Damme a star, Sheldon Lettich fought to cast him in a movie that never happened. According to Sheldon, Cannon’s Menahem Golan had one response: “Van Damme is poison.” In Part 3 of our conversation, Sheldon Lettich, Sam Firstenberg and Robert Radler reveal the stories behind some of your favorite martial arts movies—from Striker’s Force, the unmade project intended to pair Van Damme with Leon Isaac Kennedy, to the unforgettable fights in Double Impact, Lionheart, American Ninja and Best of the Best. The directors also discuss Bloodsport and Lionheart reboot conversations, the return of classic films on Blu-ray and 4K, roles they would have given Chuck Norris, and on-set accidents involving Van Damme and Mark Dacascos. Which movie discussed in this episode is your favorite—and would you watch a remake? Tell us below. 👇 🎙️ Full conversation from Blood, Sweat & Cinema Podcast. #VanDamme #CannonFilms #MartialArts #ActionMovies #BloodSweatAndCinema ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS 00:00 “Van Damme Is Poison!” — Cold Open 00:35 Mark Dacascos: American Samurai & Only the Strong 02:12 Martial Arts Stars Who Deserve More Recognition 03:24 Why Classic Action Movies Are Coming Back 04:12 Double Impact’s Twins Without CGI 05:00 Could Old-School Action Movies Work Today? 06:47 Sam Firstenberg on Today’s Audiences 07:25 Robert Radler on Rebooting Best of the Best 07:53 Bloodsport & Lionheart Reboot Discussions 08:46 The Blu-ray & 4K Collector Market 10:22 Passing Martial Arts Classics to the Next Generation 11:10 How New Movies Bring Fans Back to the Originals 12:01 The Wrecking Crew: Modern Action, Cannon Spirit 13:29 Star Power, Pre-Sales & Getting Movies Made 14:52 How Van Damme’s Name Sold Lionheart 15:25 Which Roles Would They Give Chuck Norris? 16:38 Sam Firstenberg’s Meeting with Van Damme 17:29 Favorite Villains: Thompson, Kilpatrick & Ryan 18:49 Striker’s Force: The Van Damme Movie That Never Happened 20:46 Why Menahem Golan Wanted Dudikoff Instead 21:34 Filming Best of the Best’s Final Fight 23:31 Building the American Ninja Finales 24:21 Cannon’s Shooting Schedules & Extra Weeks 25:43 Double Impact & Lionheart’s Iconic Final Fights 26:59 The Lionheart Accident That Injured Van Damme 28:03 Fight Control & the Rhee Brothers’ Deliberate Contact 28:47 Paco Prieto & Mark Dacascos’ Only the Strong Accident 29:52 Robert Radler’s 43 Power Rangers Episodes ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔥 THE BSC PODCAST – EARLY ACCESS MEMBERSHIPS Join BSC memberships ranging from $1.49 ($0.99 on desktop) to $6.99/month and beyond! ✔ Early access to episodes ✔ Members-only content ✔ Behind-the-scenes updates ✔ Help support the podcast Become a BSC Member:    / @thebscpod   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📺 WATCH MORE BLOOD, SWEAT & CINEMA 🎥 Lettich, Radler, & Firstenberg Series: PART1️⃣:    • 3 Legendary Action Directors Together for ...   PART2️⃣:    • Remake Lionheart, Best of the Best & Ameri...   📺 Blood, Sweat & Cinema Channel:    / @thebscpod   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📲 FOLLOW BLOOD, SWEAT & CINEMA Instagram: @thebscpod TikTok: @thebscpod Facebook: @thebscpod X / Twitter: @thebscpod ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔥 BRANDS WE TRUST (Using these supports the channel) 🥊 HAYABUSA https://lcshop.co/4x5FqC USE CODE: BSC Additional 10% Discount 💪 1ST PHORM https://1stphorm.sjv.io/c/6823228/306... 🎬 CAPCUT https://capcutaffiliateprogram.pxf.io... 👊 BUCKED UP https://bckd.co/xbP281N USE CODE: BSC1 Additional 10% Discount 🔥 ALPHALETE No matter what… show up. Train in Alphalete: https://alphalete-athletics-llc.pxf.i... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📺 Watch Full Interviews on YouTube    / @thebscpod   🎧 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/3ST4iVS... 🍎 Listen on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...