“They just hated him”: the producers who dedicated their “whole existence” to destroying Steven Seagal
Befitting one of the most unpopular people in Hollywood, even the producers who employ Steven Seagal and fund his movies didn’t think twice about setting out to destroy him completely.
Based on the sheer number of actors and filmmakers who’ve spoken out against the portly martial artist, which runs well into the double figures, it’s remarkable that he managed to sustain a film career for so long when he was, for all intents and purposes, a colossal arsehole.
It’s never a wise idea for any star to get high on their own supply, and few have ever gotten higher on their own supply than Seagal, who held himself in such high esteem that he actively told tall tales about his past to build his own mythology, even though the holes of truth were repeatedly poked through it.
By the mid-2000s, he was a decade past his sell-by date as a relevant concern at least, but he still kept churning out those awful straight-to-video action flicks with regularity, despite his aversion to such things as showing up on time, not being a dickhead, and taking part in the fight scenes that sold the picture.
In the case of 2006’s Mercenary for Justice, the producers were ready, willing, and able to sue Seagal the second he stepped out of line, having already completed the documentation before the first day of shooting. In most cases, that would be a warning to the leading man, but to the surprise of what must have been nobody, he ended up getting sued anyway.
Fantastically named director Don E FauntLeRoy vividly remembered that despite the production companies having agreed to make a Steven Seagal movie, hired Steven Seagal to headline it, and stumped up the $15 million budget to make the thing, they utterly despised everything about him.
“They just hated him, and their whole existence was to destroy him and the film,” he recalled. “The day I arrived, they showed me a lawsuit that had already been prepared and was ready to file if Steven gave them any problems.” The easiest way to avoid any issues would be to not give them any reason to file the lawsuit, but Seagal couldn’t even manage that.
Nu Image, Inc and Kill Master Productions, which sound like a pair of stand-up organisations, lodged a $14 million suit, accusing the actor of constantly arriving late and demanding costly rewrites, leading to contract breaches and production delays, which was eventually settled out of court.
It says a lot about Seagal’s character and reputation that not only was a lawsuit ready to go before a single frame had been shot in the event he got up to his usual bullshit, but he fully lived up to those expectations, meaning the drafted paperwork was an ingenious move on the producers’ part, if anything.
