Stung by Accusations

The $16-million actioner “Red Scorpion” starring Dolph Lundgren--which caused a stir when it was shot, in part, in a country under South African rule--stood out amid the schlock at the recent American Film Market. Potential buyers lined up eagerly to see a 20-minute-plus clip. But unlike the majority of AFM entries, it wasn’t there to be sold.

“The footage we’re showing was edited on location. We just didn’t feel ready for sales,” explained director Joe Zito, who’d returned from Africa only two weeks earlier. “But we felt we had to tell the world we’re here.”

Zito didn’t want to “revive” old news headlines. But: “We’ve paid a high price for a lot of ludicrous statements that were not true.”

(That “high price” included Warner Bros. backing out of an initial agreement to distribute the film; at the time, a spokesman attributed the pullout to “the production’s South African involvement.”)

Zito claims that the AFM exposure has generated interest among other major distributors and “from buyers around the world.”

He calls his picture “a Red ‘Rambo’ “--Lundgren plays a Russ “super elite killer” dispatched to assassinate an African leader who undergoes a metamorphosis in the field--and predicted Lundgren will emerge as a “hip, sexy and tough as hell” new action hero.