Demolition Man Was Almost Very Different, With Jean-Claude Van Damme As The Villain

Marco Brambilla's 1993 film "Demolition Man" has a pretty wild premise. In the near-future of 1996, a wildly destructive criminal named Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) is at large and taking hostages in Los Angeles. The cop sent in to apprehend Pheonix is John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone), an officer so reckless that he's earned the nickname of Demolition Man. When Spartan finds and confronts Pheonix, he explodes the building they're in. They both escape, but an investigation reveals the bodies of the hostages in the rubble. Oops. Spartan didn't handle that operation very well.

As punishment, Spartan and Pheonix are both subjected to a new prison experiment. Instead of living in cells, prisoners are cryogenically frozen for decades and fed subliminal rehabilitation messages. Spartan is thawed in the year 2032, where the world is now overseen by a benevolent (seeming) right-wing cult leader who has whipped Los Angeles — now San Angeles — into shape. The world is now polite and clean. Cussing comes with a fine, salt and meat are illegal, and people only have sex with VR appliances. Murder and crime are unheard of, and cops are essentially etiquette agents. Phoenix is, through various plot contrivances, also thawed, and the old enemies have to duke it out in a strange future that is ill-equipped to handle either of them.

As Phoenix, Wesley Snipes brings his usual amount of chaotic, humorous energy that is his forte. Simon Phoenix is an appealing villain, full of quips and infused with a devil-may-care attitude.

It seems, however, that Simon Phoenix was once offered to Belgian action superstar Jean-Claude Van Damme. Back in 2008, speaking to MTV News, Van Damme talked about how "Demolition Man" was once conceived as a vehicle for him and for his action hero contemporary, Steven Seagal.

During his MTV interview (seemingly speaking off the cuff), Van Damme dropped the following bomb:

"Years ago it was proposed that I would do a film with Steven Seagal. I was supposed to be in 'Demolition Man' with him. It was a great project. The script I read was a lot different than the one Sly did with Wesley Snipes. I was the bad guy. He was the good guy because he was the Warner Bros guy."

Van Damme had been performing since 1979, but caught his big break in 1988 with the release of "Bloodsport." Seagal, meanwhile, also broke through in 1988 with the film "Above the Law." The two stars ascended in a parallel trajectory, each enjoying a massive cultural presence in the early 1990s. "Demolition Man" would certainly have been on both actors' radars, and it's not too wild to imagine a sci-fi thriller starring both of them.

Stallone was a better choice for John Spartan, anyway, as he has a sense of humor and Steven Seagal is notoriously growly and stoic. Van Damme, meanwhile, would have played an entertaining villain but would have lacked Snipes' overwhelming natural charm. Both Seagal and Van Damme both experienced a contraction in their mutual popularity in the late 1990s. They also, however, continued to work in slightly lower-profile pictures.

Not to show any favoritism, but Van Damme actually bothered to hone his craft, becoming a better and better actor as his career went on. He also understood his odd place in the pop culture firmament and made a feature film (2008's "JCVD") and a TV series (2016's "Jean-Claude Van Johnson") specially geared toward self-reflection and fourth-wall-breaking meta-commentary about the fleeting nature of fame.

When the 2010s rolled around, and Sylvester Stallone was feeling nostalgic, he directed the ballyhooed actioner "The Expendables," a gimmick film that assembled a theogony of 1980s cinematic action stars and had them fight each other; it was "The Avengers" for dads. Steven Seagal never appeared in an "Expendables" movie, but Van Damme played the villain in "The Expendables 2."

Perhaps more notable, however, was the time when Van Damme and Seagal were invited to Stallone's house for a party sometime in 1997. This incident is a matter of record, having been reported by the Telegraph and confirmed by Stallone in an issue of FHM. The two stars had something of a rivalry back in the early '90s and they once posited an honest-to-goodness fistfight to determine dominance. It seems that Seagal, when he appeared on "The Arsenio Hall Show" in 1991, openly doubted that Van Damme was actually a trained martial artist (he is). Van Damme remembered Segal's accusation at Stallone's party in Miami years later and was macho enough to prove himself.

Stallone recalled:

"At a party in my home in Miami in 1997, Van Damme was tired of Seagal claiming he could kick his ass, so he offered Seagal outside into my back yard. [...] Seagal made his excuses and left. But Van Damme, who was berserk, tracked him down at a nightclub and offered him out again. [...] Van Damme was too strong. Seagal wanted none of it."

Van Damme, talking to the Telegraph, said of the incident:

"No fight was made, just a little pushing. [...] I was pissed a little and said to Steven, 'Come outside.' I waited two hours but he never came. Steven was very disrespectful that night."

These days, luckily, it's all water under the bridge.