Part 25: Overview Pt. 2
And now the thrilling conclusion of the SnakeFist franchise.Rebooted Series
In 1999 Warner was looking to add more blockbuster action movies to their roster of films. In exchange for funding the biopic Sam Houston, Hal Bouchard gave up the rights to the SnakeFist film franchise. Warner then spent two years assessing scripts and actors to fill the role. Russell Crowe was an early contender for the role, but bowed out of contention after the firm offers that rolled in after Gladiator became a megahit. In January of 2002 Warner announced Australian Kevin Gero had won the role. The move was widely criticized by fans of the franchise due to Gero’s boyish looks and blond hair. To appease fans Warner released Gero’s screen tests online February 18th of that year, showing Gero with short dark hair and using a gravely American accent. Original SnakeFist David Herbert praised Gero after a meeting with the actor in March, and Hal Bouchard remarked that Gero would be an amazing SnakeFist having sat in on the screen tests and having met with Gero several times afterwards.
Bouchard would receive an Executive Producer credit on the first movie, simply titled SnakeFist and released in 2003. The movie changed SnakeFist to be a CIA asset who worked in Iraq, Bosnia and “other trouble zones.” The plot begins with SnakeFist in handcuffs aboard a prisoner transport plane where the guards are taunting him in Russian. The film then spends half its runtime showing how SnakeFist was brought into custody after causing major property damage in Moscow chasing down Cyrus Johnson (Albert Sachs), an American domestic terrorist intent on starting a new Cold War between the US and Russia by carrying out a series of attacks on Russia and implicating the US government. SnakeFist catches and has a brutal eight minute fistfight with Johnson directly in front of the Kremlin. SnakeFist realizes all too late that by chasing Johnson he was playing into his hands and the Russians now had a CIA agent on the scene of two house bombings and a church fire, along with being part of the reason two school busses full of children went tumbling into a river and the killing of half a dozen corrupt FSB agents working with Johnson. SnakeFist commandeers the prisoner transport plane and returns to Moscow, wringing a confession out of Johnson and clearing the US government of any wrongdoing as Russia began drawing up plans to supply the Taliban with weapons to fight the US forces in Afghanistan.
The movie was a runaway hit, easily making back its $100 million budget over its first weekend in theaters and causing Warner to lock Gero into a five film contract. The rebooted SnakeFist would make $400 million before exiting theaters. Production on a sequel began immediately with writers Noel Ronsky and Michael Mulholsky returning and director Ellis Watkins agreeing to finish out a trilogy of SnakeFist movies. SnakeFist: Cold Snap was released in 2005 to critical acclaim and record breaking box office numbers. Kevin Gero grew a beard before filming started and refused to shave. Surprising many Warner executives it tested well and Gero would sport the facial hair in each of his appearances as SnakeFist from then on. It was noted that this was the first time SnakeFist movie had been shot in the snow. The film is known for two major sequences: a fight between SnakeFist and Bertrand Marceau’s (Simon LePaige) minions on a sheer rock face, and the fight at the very end of the movie with SnakeFist following Marceau’s blood trail in to a raging snowstorm to see the job done, only for Marceau to reveal he was wearing body armor and had lured SnakeFist into a trap. The last 20 minutes of the movie see SnakeFist and Marceau battling each other and descending the mountain via tumbles and falls. The film ends with SnakeFist collapsing next to the defeated Marceau and speaking the final line of the movie, “Fuck you,” before the credits roll.
SnakeFist 3: Ronin was another famous misfire in the franchise. It begins right after Cold Snap ends and SnakeFist is transported to Japan for experimental surgery to save his frostbitten limbs. To save him from the worst of the pain he’s put into a coma only to wake when the hospital comes under attack by the Yakuza boss Hideki Yutsu, who is missing a right eye and right hand. SnakeFist, weak due to skin grafts and the month long coma he just woke up from makes an escape from the hospital shot entirely in a bleary first person perspective that gave a number of viewers motion sickness. It is later revealed that SnakeFist trained for many years in Japan under Master Yoto Suzuki, who had also trained Yutsu. It is also revealed that SnakeFist was the cause of the missing limb and eye Yutsu sports, due to a fight for the affections of Rei, the Master’s daughter. The film ends with SnakeFist and a cybernetically enhanced Yutsu engaging in another battle for Rei that some fans pointed out was a shot for shot remake of the final battle in Highlander.
Ronin bombed with critics and had one of the lowest box office results of the entire franchise. SnakeFist actor Kevin Gero was apologetic during his press tour for SnakeFist IV: Johnson’s Revenge three years later saying in an interview with Men’s Health: “I really don’t know what we were thinking. Someone should have stopped us and asked if we really needed a montage of SnakeFist learning how to be a ninja set to ‘Highway to the Danger Zone’ in 2007.” Hal Bouchard would go on record stating that Warner Brothers insisted on the Japan angle during the scripting of the movie in 2005 due to the wave of Japanese horror movie remakes doing well in US theaters and a “Fundamental misunderstanding of why they were popular.”
SnakeFist IV: Johnson’s Revenge saw an older and tougher SnakeFist. Returned to the US after the events of Ronin SnakeFist resumes his work with the CIA. In an early scene he shows the harder edge he’s gained after the death of Rei in the previous movie by nearly beating a suspected bomb-maker to death with a hotel Bible. Now considered a loose cannon his superiors consider shipping him to a quiet field office for a few months, but the hijacking of every broadcast frequency in Washington DC delays that. Abel Johnson, younger brother to Cyrus Johnson, has launched a full out assault on the nation’s capital to free his brother who is being held in a secret facility below the Pentagon. SnakeFist is sent out to defeat the younger Johnson, but DC has become a complete warzone as the city’s police, the Army and Air Force all attempt to fight back the mercenaries and “Patriots” Johnson has rallied to his side. Johnson’s Revenge is often compared to a full on war film; featuring major set piece battles, last second air strikes saving the major characters, hastily assembled detention centers and a focus on the horrors of war. The final sequence sees SnakeFist flying an F-35 taking on the Johnson brothers who are attempting to flee DC in a stolen F-18. Many aerospace observers pointed out how impossible the fight was as the F-35 not only took off, but shot something down.
Sadly, SnakeFist IV was the last film in the franchise. Director Ellis Watkins would die tragically in a suspected drunk driving accident in 2011, ending Kevin Gero’s interest in the franchise. Gero would request to be released from his contract only a few months after Watkins’ death and Warner allowed for it. While the fourth rebooted SnakeFist movie had been a major box office success, combining domestic and foreign numbers to be slightly under $1 billion in total ticket sales, Gero was never seen as a major part of the success by the Warner board. Outside of SnakeFist Gero hadn’t had much success with other films like the romantic comedy Men and Women and Dogs and the horror film Half Past Dead. Gero himself would state that he only took on roles like those because of the insane shooting schedule on the film franchise, with one movie often shooting only a few months after the previous one had debuted. Either way, Warner didn’t see him as necessary to continuing the franchise and began a search for the third SnakeFist.
Development Hell
Warner had far more trouble re-casting the SnakeFist role than they had originally believed they would. Many established actors saw the role as career poison, many younger and lesser known actors were busy attempting to helm multi-million dollar superhero movies. Despite the immense popularity of the character Warner had to issue a casting call for the part in late 2011 as all actors approached turned down the role when told they would be required to make five movies if they accepted the deal. Mark Scapa; a Youngstown, Ohio native new to acting would win a screen test based on his audition and clips from a short film he had appeared in earlier that year, but Warner would reject him for the SnakeFist role and instead cast him in Magic Mike instead, but his scenes were cut.
Finding a new SnakeFist was especially difficult as there was no script for the next movie. Several drafts had been started and rejected by Michael Mulholsky after Noel Ronskey left to write for Marvel Studios, drawn like many of the young actors Warner was attempting to court by superhero movie money. Working with a small staff as the head writer Mulholsky reviewed what he claimed were “A pretty bad mix of terrible and bad. One went through a bunch of rewrites and became The Chernobyl Diaries if you want an idea on how bad.” With no script and no actor to coalesce the project around the SnakeFist franchise was adrift. Warner attempted to court Hal Bouchard to try to give some direction to the project, but in November 2012 he officially retired from film after revealing a doctor had recently diagnosed him with stomach cancer.
In January 2013 Kevin Gero posted on Twitter that Warner had approached him about playing SnakeFist again in a one picture deal, which he turned down without hesitation. In the two years since leaving the franchise Gero had starred in False Seer for two years on ABC as Detective Ron Erway, a man given the power to see past events from the perspective of objects he touches. However, the visions aren’t always accurate as a dark power manipulates and obscures some of the visions leaving Ron to use his wits and detective skills to ultimately resolve each case. Gero had reportedly found the work more to his liking and was more interested in working small film projects than big action movies.
In March of 2014 Warner announced that Ethan Hawke had been in talks for a two picture deal, but the talks quickly fell through after Hawke’s agent requested a percentage of the gross in addition to $10 million per film. Warner walked away from the talks as they didn't think Hawke was worth something close to $100 million over two movies if the gross percentages were as high as they were projected to be.