Fortress

According to an interview with director Stuart Gordon, Arnold Schwarzenegger was to star as John Brennick since Arnold was a big fan of Re-Animator (1985) in which Arnold's stunt-double, Peter Kent was a cast member. Stuart Gordon: "...it was Arnold Schwarzenegger that got me the job and it was because of Re-Animator. We used Arnold's body-double in Re-Animator. The first reanimated corpse is a guy named Peter Kent, Arnold's double. He's got those big muscles. He got Arnold to see Re-Animator and Arnold liked it so much that he had a screening of it in his home, inviting all of these people, including producer John Davis. John had the rights to Fortress and Arnold was going to do it. For some reason, I'm not sure why, Arnold finally decided that he wasn't going to do the movie and dropped out. They had a big budget, probably like 60 million, 70 million dollars, which was a huge budget in those days. Now it sounds small. [laughs] Anyway, he dropped out and the budget went down. They cut the budget to about 15 million dollars."

After Maddox's lower midsection is obliterated by the turret, he continues to stand upright for many moments before turning and falling off the duct pipe. But with no spine, that part of his torso could not have remained fully upright.

The Australian theatrical and home entertainment versions all have the violence intact, but the Aussie version features the happier, more upbeat ending -- deleting the truck chase/explosion.