Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

Your most dangerous enemies are the friends you've double-crossed.

Jeremiah Ecks, an FBI agent, realizes that he must join with his lifelong enemy, Agent Sever, a rogue DIA agent with whom he is in mortal combat, in order to defeat a common enemy. That enemy has developed a "micro-device" that can be injected into victims in order to kill them at will.

Date of release
2002-09-20
TMDB
4.3 / 10 (412)
Runtime
1h 31m
Genres
Action, Adventure, Thriller, Science Fiction
Director
Wych Kaosayananda

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Vancouver

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is a 2002 action thriller film directed and co-produced by Wych Kaosayananda from a screenplay by Alan B. McElroy. The film stars Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu as opposing secret agents who team up to fight a common enemy. It was an international co-production with the United States, Canada, and Germany.

Production

In 1986, screenwriter Alan B. McElroy wrote a spec script titled Legion, about an ex L.A. cop who's called in to help track down a rogue CIA agent code-named Legion who went on a killing spree. After he and director Dwight H. Little made Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), the next movie they wanted to do was Legion, which by then was re-titled into Gunner, the name of the main hero character in the script.

After the director and cast were finally chosen in pre-production, McElroy's script was completely re-written by Peter M. Lenkov. The main reasons for re-writes included excessively big and expensive action sequences, a wish for a more serious, darker, and grittier tone, and the story of McElroy's original script focusing more on themes of family love and loss and revenge.

Originally the film was intended to star Wesley Snipes and Jet Li, and then after them Sylvester Stallone and Vin Diesel were going to star. Kaosayananda's preferred choices were Chow Yun-fat and Jean Reno, but producers didn't consider them financially viable.

On November 12, 1999, The Honolulu Advertiser announced Chris Lee and Franchise Pictures would produce Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, and that Kaos would direct the film. On July 26, 2001, Entertainment Weekly revealed Liu and Banderas were in discussions about starring in the film, as well as two descriptions of the film's premise: "two competing assassins who unite against a common foe" and "Bad Boys meets The Professional".

Principal photography was scheduled to begin in Bangkok on November 5, 2001. However, Lee changed the filming location to Hawaii, before ultimately settling on Vancouver, due to lower production costs and superior tax incentives.

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