If you’re a fan of action movies, chances are you have watched something that director and producer Dimitri Logothetis has had a hand in bringing to life. His latest film, Gunner, stars both Luke Hemsworth and Morgan Freeman in a nonstop session of guns, gangs, and gumption. He’s also the person responsible for rebooting the Kickboxer franchise, featuring the likes of Alain Moussi, Dave Bautista, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, while the filmmaker also created the most 2020 movie of all time, the sci-fi actioner Jiu Jitsu, starring Nicolas Cage, Frank Grillo, and Tony Jaa.
Fortress of Solitude received the opportunity to sit down and chat to Dimitri Logothetis about his extraordinary career and what the future holds for the Kickboxer franchise. In addition to this, Logoethetis peeled back the curtain to discuss what it’s like to work with Hollywood legends like Cage and JCVD. This is one interview that no one wants to miss!
Fortress of Solitude: Congratulations on the release of Gunner. I watched it over the weekend and had a good time with it. What was it about this project that attracted you to it?
Dimitri Logothetis: Well, writer Gary Scott Thompson and I have been talking for a while, and the script was originally called Medal of Honor – and of course, you see the Medal of Honor in the film. I always like character-based action – I’m an action guy, but I always like character-based action – and I like the fact that [Lee Gunner] was a father, a family man, who did not spend any time with his family and could not spend any time with his family, and his intent was trying to get together with his boys and seeing if he could at least establish some kind of relationship.
Like a lot of vets, they are out of place in real life, so to speak, and they feel much more comfortable in their element. Consequently, what [Lee] knows how to do best, which is catch and complete a mission, ends up bringing him closer to his family. Instead of fighting for God and country, he was fighting for family. So I found that to be a really neat character. And then, Luke Hemsworth pulled it off really, really well.
That leads me to my next question. You have some real powerhouse actors in Gunner. You have Luke Hemsworth and Morgan Freeman. It’s something that I have found in your films, as you attract real stars to your projects, such as the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Nicolas Cage. What’s your secret to attracting all this great talent to your movies?
Well, I was an actor to begin with – in the beginning of my career when I was in my teens and my early 20s – and very few actors get asked to do action. I think with most young men, or older men, everybody would like to do action. And I think my characters are based in the world that we live in. Most of my characters have a code and that code is about doing the right thing for the community and family, so, therefore, they’re willing to punch the bad guy in the face when necessary as opposed to just walking away. And I think that is appealing, frankly; yet, there’s still a lot going on beyond that.
I chose Morgan Freeman to play a bad guy only because, in my opinion, bad guys are likable. I think if a bad guy was obviously a bad guy, he wouldn’t be able to pull off most of the things he does. [Laughs]. I had also been following Luke [Hemsworth’s] career for a very long time. Then, Nic Cage… He’s an amazing actor. Nic Cage will take risks and do all kinds of different things. He also dedicates himself when he comes into a project. I remember when he showed up – he flew across the world to see me, to prepare [for Jiu Jitsu]. The first thing he did when he got off the plane, he sat down and he said, “How can I help you tell this story properly? What do you need me to do?” It’s just wonderful when people jump into a project like that.
As you mentioned before, you are an action guy, and you have been in the action genre for quite a while and seen how it’s evolved over time and now in the current era. Do you believe we’re living in something of an action renaissance? If so, what do you think has reinvigorated the genre?
We have been living in an action renaissance for quite a while, in my opinion. Everybody got into visual effects, so they started doing a lot of these visual effect-oriented, futuristic, comic book-esque projects. Then, the Jason Stathams of the world and, of course, [Sylvester] Stallone with The Expendables, by bringing back not only the crew of Expendables from the last century, but also invigorating it with new Expendables… Also, the kind of stuff that Jason Statham has been doing for quite a while… I think it invigorates [the genre].
And again, I think you feel so helpless today. I believe most people feel helpless with everything that’s going on around them. So if they can live vicariously through my characters for about an hour and a half to two hours, and just kind of forget about the rest of the world, that’s what I try to do.
I must say Jiu Jitsu was a real highlight for me during COVID. It was such a weird time when not a lot of movies were being released but this one hit the spot. A friend of mine also decided to take a girl he had started seeing to the cinema then. Since there wasn’t much showing at the time, they decided to watch Jiu Jitsu. They had a great time and are still together to this day, so there’s something to be said about that.
[Laughs]. That’s wonderful. Listen, that was a crazy project. I’ll tell you how that evolved. I was sitting there a few years earlier, and I just released Kickboxer 2: Retaliation, and a distributor looks at me, and he says, “Wouldn’t it be really cool if you could combine martial arts with science fiction? I thought to myself, “Wow. I guess, sure.” I said, “We could do that.” [Laughs]. So that’s how I came up with the story itself, and jiu-jitsu happens to be one of those martial arts that really has no definitive origin. There’s so many people that take credit for it, right? You can go all the way back to Japan; however, you also can find a genesis in China and all over the place.
I mean, when you talk about kung fu, you know that kung fu comes from China. When you talk about karate, you know that karate comes from Japan. But jiu-jitsu is a little amorphous. So I thought to myself, “Okay, let’s go ahead and make sure that jiu-jitsu came from aliens, how about that?” [Laughs]. And so that was the seed, then everybody just went ahead and we rolled the story from there. It was a lot of fun. Nic [Cage]… Oh my God. He’s the one who sells it. He sells the whole thing. Remember, he sits there and he tells you how it all came down, and he does it in such a wonderful, poetic way. I was sitting there, listening to him as I was shooting it, when he does that one monologue, and I thought to myself, “Wow, this guy is just really good.” [Laughs].
I have to ask: Are there any plans for Jiu Jitsu 2? I remember a sequel was mentioned a while back, but is it still happening?
Sure. Oh, yeah. Right now, I’m preparing Kickboxer 3, and it looks like we might actually have another sequel to Gunner, because Gunner has been doing so tremendously well here in America. It’s taken off.
Today, everything is all about streaming, and the one thing I appreciate is you taking the time and I appreciate your support, and I’ll tell you why. I’m an independent filmmaker, and as independent filmmakers, we often just don’t have the amount of money and the amount of time to pull off these projects. So whenever it works, we are just as amazed as everybody else. So anytime we get support, I have to figure out how to make a picture for roughly $10-12 million and I have to compete with anything from $150-300 million films. And I think we’ve been doing a really good job at that. So, again, I appreciate your support, and I appreciate you following our projects.
I’d like to shift the focus to Kickboxer since you mentioned it. What was it like when you rebooted the franchise and got somebody like Jean-Claude Van Damme’s buy-in? Along with Bloodsport, I’d say that’s one of the franchises that truly launched him into the stratosphere as a megastar, so what was it like it getting his buy-in here?
It was very difficult, because JC didn’t want to do it. So my producing partner at the time, he called him and spoke to him. I called him and spoke to him. He said yes, then he said no, then he said yes, then he said no. And finally I met with him, and I said, “Listen, JC, you were an inspiration to me growing up. You were one of the reasons that I got into martial arts, along with Bruce Lee. I want you to be involved. Why don’t you talk to me? Why don’t we sit down and why don’t we talk about how to put things in the project?”
He’s got a great instinct for the genre, by the way. So, we sat down together in his house, here in Marina Del Rey, and we went through it. He outlined a number of the training sessions and a number of the things that he thought he should be doing and how he could add to the project, as opposed to just being in it. And I think it worked out really well.
If you notice, I always try to inject some humor. I think when you do a martial arts project, you have to not take yourself entirely seriously. You have to try to come up with a serious story, but on the other hand, if you’re buying into this to be The Godfather, then there’s something wrong with you. This is supposed to be entertainment and you’re supposed to have fun. [Laughs]. And [Van Damme] was more than happy to really have some fun. And if you notice, there’s an awful lot of humor and an awful lot of inside humor. When we did Kickboxer 2, we got a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score from major critics around the world. I thought to myself, “Wow, they got it,” and a lot of them did get it. It’s because that humor is very difficult to follow if you’re not a martial arts fan.
You mentioned Kickboxer 3 is in the works. Is Van Damme confirmed to make an appearance or is that still to be determined?
I have got him on my phone right now. He leaves me messages in the middle of the night, sometimes depending on where he is, and we’re going back and forth again. And I would love for him to be in it, and we’re just kind of talking about how we’re going to be able to implement that. So, it depends on what he’s doing. But there’s also a Kickboxer television series in the works, so we have been working on that for a while, so we’ll see how that goes.
Earlier this year, I saw the news that Scott Adkins and Paige VanZant were confirmed for Kickboxer 3: Armageddon. We interviewed Scott for his new movie Take Cover recently and he’s perfect for Kickboxer. Are they still on board and ready to go?
We had to push the film back because it wasn’t ready to go. Scott was very enthusiastic about it; hopefully, once we get a new date, he’s going to commit again. I love Scott, and I think Scott would add a completely different energy to Kickboxer. I would love to get Scott back into the project. I mean, come on, he’s a modern-day legend when it comes to martial arts.
I noticed you like working with Alain Moussi a lot – obviously on Kickboxer and Jiu Jitsu. What is it about him as an actor you enjoy apart from the natural martial arts ability?
Well, I think if you go back to the genesis and the wonderful martial arts films that are iconic, you’ll see that all of them have authentic martial artists. Very seldom do you have an iconic martial arts hero who is not authentic. Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Van Damme, etc.
So, Alain is a six degree jiu-jitsu master. If you look at the kind of things he can do on camera, they’re amazing. Remember, he’s 6’1″, and he weighs over 200 pounds. So for him to do a front flip, a back aerial, to be able to run up the side of a wall… Normally, his contemporaries weigh about 155 pounds. [Laughs]. He’s an incredible athlete. And so what I try to do is I push the boundaries in the martial arts, so you have to be able to do that. Now, I can double an actor, but I don’t think the audience would appreciate that.
You have mentioned Kickboxer 3. What other projects are on your plate that you’d like to discuss? Since you’re an independent filmmaker, what about an independent comic book film? Would that be something of interest?
Sure. We have launched two comic books with Jiu Jitsu. The reason I do it is to work out the story. I’m not trying to go into the comic book business, but it really helps me to work out a story and to get comic books out there to help generate some interest from the audience. Flying Shadow is a project that I really love. It’s been announced, and it’s something that I’m pursuing, but first I have got to make Kickboxer and as soon as I finish that, then we’re probably going to launch off into Flying Shadow and prepare that. So, that’s what’s at the forefront of my mind for the moment.
