D-Tox

💡 Did You Know?

After the movie was finished in 1999, Universal Studios decided to screen it to a test audience. All the screenings of the first cut got very bad reactions, and the film was then shelved while re-shoots and story changes were being done. A new ending was also filmed in which the main villain is killed in a different way - but even after re-shoots and title changes (the movie's working titles were "Detox", "The Outpost" and "Eye See You"), Universal Studios didn't care for it. After test screenings for the new version also got negative response, it finally received a limited release three years after completion.

In a Q&A for Ain't It Cool News in December 2006, Sylvester Stallone was asked why the movie didn't get a wider release, and he answered;

"It's very simple why D-TOX landed in limbo. A film is a very delicate creature. Any adverse publicity or internal shake-up can upset the perception of - and studio confidence in - a feature. For some unknown reason the original producer pulled out and right away the film was considered damaged goods; by the time we ended filming there was trouble brewing on the set because of overages and creative concerns between the director and the studio. The studio let it sit on the shelf for many months and after over a year it was decided to do a re-shoot. We screened it, it tested okay, Ron Howard was involved with overseeing some of the post-production... but the movie had the smell of death about it. Actually, if you looked up, you could see celluloid buzzards circling as we lay there dying on the distributor's floor. One amusing note: It was funny, when we were met at the airport by the teamsters they'd have a sign in front of them saying DETOX, and all these actors like Kris Kristofferson, Tom Berenger and myself looked like we were going into rehab rather than a film shoot."