The Ultimate Weapon (1998)

Interesting facts

The Ultimate Weapon is a 1998 Canadian action film directed by Jon Cassar, starring Hulk Hogan, Daniel Pilon, Carl Marotte and Cynthia Preston. Hogan stars as a military contractor who runs afoul of the I.R.A. when he destroys one of their weapon stashes, and must protect his family from their vengeful wrath. Coming from the producer of the similar Steele Justice, it is considered Hogan's only true foray into the type of R-rated action vehicles that many of his contemporaries essayed during the 1980s and 1990s.

Production

John C. Strong was previously slated to helm The Overlords, another action film set in a steel town that would have paired Hogan with Gary Busey and fellow wrestler Roddy Piper. The film was pre-sold at the 1996 American Film Market and Cannes Film Market. Despite it being a Canadian production, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that Hogan was in Los Angeles to work on the film at the end of June 1996.

Strong resurfaced with a new project, The Ultimate Weapon, which was promoted at Cannes in May 1997, and for which he was announced as the director until days before filming. In the finished product, Jon Cassar—who had just directed Hogan in the made-for-television Assault on Devil's Island—received directorial credit, while Strong only received a presenter credit via his outfit The John Strong Company.

The screenplay was written by Quebec writer Vincent Robert, who is alternatively credited as Vincent Paul Robert on the boxcover of a Lionsgate VHS, and Paul Robert in the film itself. The Ultimate Weapon was part of a brief period during which Hogan attempted harder edged roles than his usual family fare.

The Ultimate Weapon was produced by Murray Shostak and Danny Rossner of Montreal-based S/R Productions for Betar Entertainment, the Los Angeles-based company of executive producers Aziz Alaoui and Philippe Martinez. The role of the other main partner, John Strong, is unclear. On his resume, he primarily mentions coordinating the film's marketing campaign.

While the film takes place in Serbia and the Eastern U.S., it was filmed in the Canadian province of Quebec, and features bilingual local actors Carl Marotte and Daniel Pilon in major supporting roles. Just prior, Marotte played Jeff Fahey's sidekick in another of Shostak and Rossner's productions called When Justice Fails. Pilon returned to voice his dialogue in the French dub, but Marotte did not.

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