\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter the 1988 success of Cannon Films\u2019 Hong Kong-set Bloodsport<\/em>, starring the then up-and-coming Jean-Claude Van Damme, Cannon\u2019s Menahem Golan, a regular and colorful presence at the American Film Market, was looking for a new vehicle for the Belgian-born martial arts star when writer-director Sheldon Lettich pitched a screenplay he\u2019d written based on Alexandre Dumas\u2019 The Corsican Brothers<\/em>, about two twins separated at birth. Golan wasn\u2019t convinced that Van Damme was ready to handle a dual role, but Lettich managed to extricate the script from Cannon and sold it to producer Moshe Diamant, who set it up, with Columbia Pictures agreeing to take domestic rights and Vision International handling international sales.<\/p>\n \n\tBudgeted at $15 million, 1991\u2019s Double Impact<\/em>, the most expensive project Van Damme had tackled to date, featured him as brothers Alex and Chad Wagner. \u201cOne packs a piece and the other packs a pistol,\u201d posters for the movie proclaimed, although the real distinction between the two was that Alex relies on street-fighting and firearms, while Chad has a black belt in karate. Eager to expand his range, Van Damme explained, \u201cOne of them is violent and the other is not, so the audience can see the contrast in my work. This picture has comedy, romance, a love story. So it is not all action and fighting. When I fight onscreen, I blend dancing and fighting. Grace plus power is very nice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTHR<\/em>\u2019s review said Lettich \u201cgives Van Damme plenty of space for his performance, but his direction, like his star, only really comes alive during the action scenes,\u201d though he also noted that Van Damme\u2019s \u201cgrowing legion of action fans should be pleased.\u201d In fact, the formula found an appreciative audience, and after Double Impact <\/em>grossed $80 million worldwide ($190.8 million today), Van Damme would go on to make three more movies \u2014 1996\u2019s Maximum Risk<\/em> and 2001\u2019s Replicant<\/em> and The Order<\/em> \u2014 in which he again doubled up to play dual roles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the 1988 success of Cannon Films\u2019 Hong Kong-set Bloodsport, starring the then up-and-coming Jean-Claude Van Damme, Cannon\u2019s Menahem Golan, a regular and colorful presence at the American Film Market, was looking for a new vehicle for the Belgian-born martial arts star when writer-director Sheldon Lettich pitched a screenplay he\u2019d written based on Alexandre Dumas\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[19148,1389,19147,306,7103],"class_list":{"0":"post-33433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-damme","9":"tag-double","10":"tag-jeanclaude","11":"tag-market","12":"tag-van"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}