Round these parts, Welcome To The Jungle is a 2003 action comedy starring The Rock, Christopher Walken and Stifler. That film is known to the rest of the world as The Rundown, however, leaving the title up for grabs for an adventure holiday caper starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kristen Schaal (not two names we ever expected to see together). A PG version of the trailer arrived online over the Christmas period, but now here's a slightly cruder red band version, courtesy of Yahoo.
The two trailers are practically identical, but this one is 16 seconds longer to allow a quick extra scene that has the words "shat" and "pussy". In either form what's clear is that this is not a traditional Van Damme movie, and one of those all-too-rare occasions when he's given the opportunity to send himself up. That's always fun.
The real focus of the film is the gang on the team-building exercise, which along with Schaal includes Adam Brody, Megan Boone, Aaron Takahashi and Van Damme's daughter Bianca Bree (this marks their sixth joint outing).
Rob Meltzer is Welcome To The Jungle's director, and despite a prestigious award for Outstanding Achievement by an Ensemble Cast at last year's Newport Beach Film Festival, it's headed straight to DVD in most of Europe next month. Expect the same in the UK, although we don't have a release date so far.
Van-Damme will next be back to his usual action tricks in Pound Of Flesh, in which he plays a guy who rescues a damsel in distress only to then wake up in a gore-spattered hotel room with one of his kidneys missing. Hate when that happens. Ernie Barbarash (Assassination Games, Six Bullets) is back to direct that one.
"I’m looking forward to sinking my teeth into Pound Of Flesh," says the Brussels Muscles, "because it’s exactly the kind of character-driven action thriller I and my fans love best; a movie that delivers nonstop hardcore action that’s fueled by a really surprising story and real people you care about from the moment you meet them on screen.” The shooting starts in China in March.