So Frank put me on the phone with Jean-Claude and that was the first time I ever spoke to him. Later on, after Sheldon and I got to talking, I gave it to Sheldon and we reshaped it.Blake Harris: And at what point did the script become called Bloodsport. Jean-Claude Van Damme." He wants to find a more peaceful path. I mean, he couldn't do a throw. That was the real Sheldon Lettich. And so we had a great time. Then he said, "It's my movie too and I want what's best for the film! What follows is a conversation with Sheldon Lettich, who was thescreenwriter ofthe movie Bloodsport. Because my idea for Rambo III was: well, there's only one place Rambo could goAfghanistan. How Did This Get Made:A Conversation With Frank Dux, The Real-Life Inspiration For Bloodsport. We had a nice conversation and promised each other to meet up when he was back in LA. And he turns to me and he says: "You know, Frankie, I signed a five-picture deal. But back then it sounded really cool.Blake Harris: Well you started that clich!Sheldon Lettich: [laughter] Back then, to say "based on a true story" was something that intrigued, and I think it particularly intrigued Menahem Golan. But the real contest was just punches to the chest, and Moore beat Lee like 4-2. "Blake Harris: So what eventually changed Menahem's mind? What was he like?Frank Dux: He was wonderful. Stallone's original idea was that [Colonel Sam] Trautman comes to Rambo and says something like: hey, I got a mission for you in Afghanistan. You can't just go in there and get it. And here comes Moore, and Moore drops him in under 30 seconds. I mean, the guy announced his malice. Tiger Tanaka, right? How are you going to get enough guys to fight against Michael who are even going to match his size? There had been a few other plays dealing with the military and Vietnam at the time, but they weren't written by those who had actually been there. That was a term, from England, when they used to fight dogs. When he saw he had to walk [across] an I-beam to me, and I threw a jumping spin heel kick on the ledge of the building there, he goes: Holy shit." And Jean-Claude's got a really good sense of how a fight scene should be edited. For me, martial arts is just a release. They were flabbergasted. I still had not yet met Jean-Claude at this time. More Like This Unspooled with Paul Scheer & Amy Nicholson Listen up, film fans! So when he heard that there was another movie with Van Dammeand this time Van Damme was starring in itSammy was totally enthusiastic. He saw the script. Because we don't want our readers to be misinformed, Black Belt has a policy of strict verification of all facts pertaining to any article. Why not make a budd. Told that the tournament was a secret, he said: "We would know. It was done on the exact same day that Masaaki Hatsumi, Stephen Hayes and Shoto Tanemurathese are guys who think no one in the world is a ninja but them and everyone else is a fake.Blake Harris: What about some of the specific claims that the piece makes? Pushed too farand generally all three words would appear on screenthat was big in the 80s. And they've never wavered from that.Blake Harris: The kick?Sheldon Lettich: Yeah. "But Sly," I said, "it really wouldn't work that way because one thing that's been established with Rambo is that he's the baddest motherf***er in the world, but he doesn't want to fight. That it would be helpful and therapeutic.Blake Harris: And was it? Like, for example, about your teacher?Frank Dux: They try to make it sound like I made up my instructor. Let's meet face to face. "This guy's never gonna make it," Menahem said. I thought Bloodsport was going to ruin my career when it was first cut and put together. That editorial attributes statements to me that I never made. John had convinced somebody there that doing this play was a good idea for veterans. And Menahem was dead set against it.Blake Harris: Why?Sheldon Lettich: [Laughing at the memory] His word for Jean-Claude was "poison." He did everything to basically poison the well with Jean-Claude and everybody I worked with. You can listen to theBloodsportedition of the HDTGM podcasthere. It would have been an expensive movie. I think that's why people really love it. And regardless of what any critics may say or believe, I don't think anyone would argue that you weren't extremely talented. howdidthisgetmade@earwolf.com Episodes The Specialist LIVE! "Blake Harris: [laughter]Sheldon Lettich: I tried to make my case. Although there is no convenient way to verify each and every detail connected with this story, the editors have verified enough of the basic facts to feel confident in publishing it. Oh yeah! So he still didn't' have a lot of faith in Jean-Claude's acting abilities and decided not to make it. Another thing was that had I co-directed The Quest with Jean-Claude, it might have contributed to a mistaken notion that Jean-Claude co-directed Lionheart and Double Impact with me. I blame the success of Jurassic Park for this movie. The one who's putting up his "dux? They'll cover Frank Dux being a real man, Van Damme's soft baby buns, blindfolded tea training, the not so secret illegal Kumite martial-arts tournament, Ray Jackson, and much more. He remembered that there were different shots. Because believe it or not, Robert DuBois truly was the man known for shooting the Man of Steel with a bullet in DC canon. Synopsis:U.S. Army Captain Frank Dux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who had been trained as a boy by the legendary Ninjutsu master Senzo Tanaka, decides to honor his mentor by taking the place of Tanaka's dead son in an illegal, no-holds-barred martial arts tournament called the "Kumite. And I walked out on the ledge and I was waiting for him because I knew he wasn't going to come alone. And just a few more questions. That's how Frank and I met.Blake Harris: Do you remember what your first meeting was like?Sheldon Lettich: We hit it off right away. The red one, the blue one, the black one. Jean-Claude saw Menahem on the street, did a U-Turn and said, "Hey Menahem, remember me? We just became friends almost immediately. I said, "You're trying to prove to yourself that you could do it. They were just being assholes.Blake Harris: That seemed to happen a lot at CannonSheldon Lettich: Now Blake, I have never filed a lawsuit against anyone in this business, but I filed a lawsuit against those guys, against Cannon. Live from Largo in L.A. they get into Samuel L. Jackson's infamous death scene, LL Cool J's relationship with his bird, Stellan Skarsgrd's new name, and how Saffron Burrows is the film's true villain. And we did. Unlike so many of the testosterone-fueled films of the '80s, Bloodsport holds the rare distinction of being based on a true story. "Tagline:The True Story of an American Ninja, "All I request," Lettich started off by saying, "is that we try to keep discussion about Frank Dux to a minimum. And I had read an article, in this magazine called M, about the French Foreign Legion. I don't think Stallone has ever been given his due by movie critics. I'm not gonna stoop to his level. They were going to do a movie called Night of the Leopard but there were some problems with getting the script so now they needed a new one. I was going to say something like, "By the way, there's actually someone here who worked on the movie and he can maybe answer some of your questions" and he was going to come out and everyone would have went f***ing crazy. And there'd be a bunch of people there with phones to record it, so we don't want this to happen.Blake Harris: Speaking of that screening, Frank had mentioned that you were crushed. Not go into the past. And this felt very personal because the guys that were up on stage for those initial performances were pretty much playing themselves in many respects.Tracers, as the play would later be titled, was first presented as a work-in-progress performance piece on July 4, 1980. And then Hollywood got to him and he started showing signs of manic depression, you know?Blake Harris: In what way?Frank Dux: I'll never forget. Mark was against it first, but I said, "Look, I can do a lot with this guy. One of these covert operatives was one Frank Dux. Yet with Bloodsport, this was not the case. His contract was not for writing, it was for use of his name and a portion of his "real-life story." The truth. A lot of those shots came from the camera angles I had been directing. And the two of them, they didn't talk about it, but they'd basically bicker through their agents because neither one wanted to be the criminal who gets killed at the end. He's in a documentary saying this. I believe that story is 100% true, because Michel Qissi was with him and he told me the same story. And because of the braces and how the legs were locked togethera steel bar locked them togetheryou couldn't even waddle, you know? Showed him a few screenplays that I had written and we decided to work together on this. He used Mike's own movements against him and dropped him. That was really my very first entry into the Writer's Guild.Blake Harris: Moving up the ranksSheldon Lettich: Yeah, and around this time I wrote a Vietnam screenplay that got me my first agent. And I can cite the evidence.Blake Harris: Looking backand considering what eventually happened after the film came outis there anything you could have done differently?Frank Dux: You know, it's part of life. And then one day I get invited down to the Long Beach Invitationals. So we had a number of people come to my apartment; John would test them out for their acting abilities and we would also try to determine if they were for real.Blake Harris: In what sense?Sheldon Lettich: Oh, I just meant we'd try to determine if they were really Vietnam veterans. I had my then-fianc back in the United States get all the uniforms for them. To turn it into a TV series. I told Menahem that the new cut of Bloodsport was great and I thought it was going to do really well. In the early to mid 90s, dinosaurs were soooo cool! California, Oregon and Washington. But then Menahem decided he didn't want to make the movie.Blake Harris: Why?Sheldon Lettich: In his words, I'm quoting, "Jean-Claude can't even play one character, how do you expect him to play two?" There's an authenticity to it.Blake Harris: Speaking of authenticity, I was wondering how much of the movie is accurate to your own life experiences?Frank Dux: Well the fighting scenes were very accurate. But what's interesting is that after the fight, I see Norris signing a program for Moore. Took me a long, long time to write that script. They were both pregnant at the same time. But, I mean, he couldn't do a forward roll when I first got him. Poison! How Did This Get Made's ad-free archives are available on Stitcher Premium. And so the ink was barely dry when I drove right over to Moshe's house and we signed a deal to do what became Double Impact.Blake Harris: From a technological standpoint, what were some of the biggest challenges with shooting two Jean-Claudes?Sheldon Lettich: The biggest challenges were that we were still using old technology. But if they did Bloodsport, then they can do Timecop. Jean-Claude, Michel Qissi and we were all predicting how much money the movie was going to make.Blake Harris: That's wonderful.Sheldon Lettich: Yes, but there was still an additional hurdle. Well you know how that ended up. I don't know if the word "genius" is maybe taking it too high, but this is a very smart creative guy who is very much underappreciated. And they wouldn't show it to me. Like I'm a kook because he comes out of a James Bond movie: You Only Live Twice. It's a way for me to just flow. He was actually going to come to that Bloodsport screening in North Hollywood [referenced in our conversation with Frank Dux]. An animatronic dinosaur with a teen's brain, dinosaur charades, a weird striptease for a brain in a bowl, and much more. he's a terrible actor. If they'd actually served. You spent almost four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, is that correct?Sheldon Lettich: Yeah, I served as a radio operator in South Vietnam and then later with 1st Force Reconnaissance Company based at Camp Pendleton, California.Blake Harris: So how did you go about making that enormous transition from wartime soldier to Hollywood writer?Sheldon Lettich: Well, surprisingly enough, my first success came in the theater. He was good at stiff karate moves, but that was it. You know what I mean? I mean, they put it on the shelf for two years. So I have all these memories of falling down stairs and crawling on my knees. I wrote the script, got paid a small fee and I can't remember how much time passedprobably less than a yearand via another guy named Lou Horwitza financer who, I believe, did gap-financing at the timeLou took it to Cannon. Bloodsport. And Leon was going to star in the movie, which we called The White House All Stars with the "White House" being a frat house at this college where all the football players lived. We have a treatment and we started writing the script. He was the one who actually introduced me to beef and oyster sauce. But then Ed Pressman, who had done Street Fighter, he wanted to do another movie with Jean-Claude. But it was interesting because he's fighting Mike Stone and Mike Stone had reportedly 91 wins. And his wife and my wife became even closer friends. How did that come about?Sheldon Lettich: Well, it's interesting. And he was just a different person. Everything you've just been telling me about this Kumite, that's a great idea for a movie. Ed Boon and John Tobias, the creators of legendary video game Mortal Kombat, were inspired in part by Bloodsport. I remember him saying, "Michael Dudikoff is a movie star! I was a gentleman. Except the version that Stallone had in mind was for a present day French Foreign Legion movie about two American buddies who enlist. And he's in this movie called No Retreat, No Surrender. ". So cool, in fact, that now we have a professional basketball team called The Raptors and no one raised an eyebrow about why a team from Tornoto, Canada would be named that. Menahem started to realize what he had with Jean-Claudeand remember, he had two more movies with himso he called us into his office and said, "We need to find our next movie for Jean-Claude." So those are the three elements. I wasn't a bitter person. He didn't like it. This regular featureis written byBlake J. Harris, who you might know as the writer ofthe bookConsole Wars, soon to be a motion pictureproduced bySeth RogenandEvan Goldberg. Double Impact was financed, mostly, through pre-sales and, as it was structured, each of those companies also own a piece of the movie. Dux said the military ordered his record sabotaged to discredit him. And he says, "What?" And when I told about him the purpose of this How Did This Get Made seriesto investigate how movies got made, and the careers of those involvedhe was happy to clear up any misconceptions and provide additional insights into the making of Bloodsport, his two decades of collaboration with Jean-Claude Van Damme and what it takes to write a badass, blow-em-up action film. "Well, can I show you what I've learned since you taught me?" It took me years to understand the producer's point, but I do now. And so he says yeah, sure, give it a shot. Which kind of made Grant feel better about himself. U.S. soldier Frank Dux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) has come to Hong Kong to be accepted into the Kumite, a highly secret and extremely violent martial-arts competition. Mr. Dux and I met in Tegucigalpal, Honduras, in the summer of 1985, where I was being briefed by Dux and other intelligence operatives on military targets within Nicaragua. As far as, like, the choreography for how fights go and stuff. It's a psychological issue that, believe it or not, happens more than you would think. And of course he says he did (but he didn't). I don't really want to give this guy a platform for more publicity because that's what he's always looking for.". None of it.Blake Harris: InterestingFrank Dux: And Shoto Tanemura, he says he's never heard of a Dukes or a Tanaka? This regular featureis written byBlake J. Harris, who you might know as the writer ofthe bookConsole Wars, soon to be a motion pictureproduced bySeth RogenandEvan Goldberg. One contribution I made to that script though was suggesting to Jean-Claude that he set the story in the past. This is the kind of bond we had. It was a moment where you have to sit back and realize that sometimes when you think something's wrong, everything is going right. This got the people at Cannon re-thinking Bloodsport and they decided to do a test run on the west coast. And that's why I kept it kind of fictional. He used to tell everybody he was a ninja; I think he still maintains he was a ninja and took his training from this guy named Tanaka. The film finds the Suicide Squad going on a mission to the fictional country of Corto Maltese to carry out a mission to destroy a secret installation housing a secret weapon known as Project Starfish. Roger Moore co-starred along side Van Damme in The Quest (1996) ironically playing a James Bond actor which Frank Dux had said inspired him to learn martial arts in the first place. I never said that. And then there's another story where he met Menahem and did it another way in Monaco. It made its budget back just the first weekend on the west coast. Jean-Claude was a big Stallone fan?Sheldon Lettich: Still is. I should mention that within hours of the piece begin published, we received several unsolicited e-mails from people who had been there and had a significantly different memory of the screening.Sheldon Lettich: [laughing] I'll let you readers draw their own conclusions. Then we needed someone different to play the Chuck Norris role. To my face he's pretending to be my best buddy, but behind my back he's doing everything in his power to undermine me in my career and take credit for my work.Blake Harris: I'm really sorry to hear that.Frank Dux: And that's a typical Hollywood story, right?

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