Focus Features

The early 90s was a time when it was a trend to pair Jean-Claude Van Damme with other action movie powerhouses: In 1991 he played opposite himself in Double Impact, and two years later he was the star of John Woo's first Hollywood project, Hard Target. However in 1992, he was pitted against the other great titan of late 80s, early 90s martial arts movies, fellow muscle-bound European Dolph Lundgren. The two played two "universal soldiers," U.S. army fighters who kill each other in Vietnam and then are reanimated to become unstoppable fighting machines. Proving that the dead do indeed bear grudges, they recommence battle with the completely inevitable result that a lot of stuff gets blown up. Like so many big summer blockbusters, Universal Soldier looked to grab a bit of the spotlight at the Cannes Film Festival, where a photo call with Van Damme and Lundgren turned into a shoving match where the two thesps had to separated. (Lundgren would later reveal that the "fight" was a publicity stunt.) The movie took an impressive $100 million worldwide, spawned three straight-to-video sequels and helped German director Roland Emmerich establish his reputation as a top level tentpole director: after Universal Soldier, he graduated from B-movie ghost stories to Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow and most recently 10,000 B.C.