The Time Van Damme injured a Stuntman on Cyborg and the Lawsuit that followed!

In this video I’m going to talk about the time Jean-Claude Van Damme actually ended up losing money with his involvement in the film Cyborg. Cyborg was shot on a real shoe string budget of just $500,000, which included Van Damme’s salary. It’s been reported that he made around $50,000 for Cyborg, which would make sense for Cannon to shell out a little more for his services after proving he could be a bankable star with his prior effort in Bloodsport. Watch my video about How and Why Cyborg ended up getting made here: Cyborg was released in 1989 and became a modest hit grossing over 10 Million domestically on it’s tiny budget. Van Damme wouldn’t be a big star for several more years however. By 1993 once his star and fame began to quickly rise after his hit Universal Soldier, one of the stuntmen From Cyborg must’ve decided there was now ample opportunity to get decently compensated for an injury he incurred on set while filming years prior. The stuntman in question was Jackson “Rock” Pinckney, a Fort Bragg-based army soldier and bodybuilder at the time, who was hired to play one of the villains in Cyborg. He claimed that he was partially blinded in his left eye after Van Damme stabbed him with a rubber prop knife back in 1988. This resulted in Mr. Pinckney being medically discharged from the Army. In the scene that caused the injury, Pinckney was supposed to run through a pool of water, come to a stop and then take a swing at Van Damme with a rubber knife. Van Damme was to simulate kicking the knife out of Pinckney’s hand, and then slashing his throat and beheading him with his own knife. But during filming, the prop knife in Van Damme’s right hand had unfortunately ended up striking Pinckney in the left eye. According to the lawsuit, Van Damme had a reputation for not pulling his punches during fight scenes in his movies, and often caused pain and injury to various stuntmen and actors during rehearsals and filming as a result. Judge John Martin said ’There was ample testimony that (Van Damme) wanted his fight scenes to look as authentic and realistic as possible and that he had a reputation for engaging in excessive contact in order to do so″. During the lawsuit, Several other stuntmen and actors in ’Cyborg″ testified that Van Damme never pulled his punches even though he was repeatedly warned to back off. For example, Blaise Loong, the sword and martial arts consultant for the film, who also played one of the villains, testified that generally there is a goal to avoid actual physical contact between weapons and individuals when filming fight scenes. He stated that several of the cast complained to him about excessive contact from the defendant (Van Damme) during the fight scenes. After accidentally poking Pinckney in the eye with the prop knife, the suit alleged that Van Damme just stood there, rather than showing any concern or trying to help his co-star. It’s likely that Van Damme wasn’t aware at the time, and he in no way seems like a callous individual; in fact, when Michael Jai White was an extra on the first Universal Soldier movie, he recounts a story about Van Damme, which I believe says a lot about Van Damme’s character. Van Damme argued that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support a finding of willful and reckless conduct. Furthermore, he later claimed that the case should’ve been thrown out altogether b/c one of the jurors visited a karate school and discussed it with an instructor. However, An appeals court found the juror showed no prejudice in reaching a verdict. The end result was $487,000 being awarded to the Plainiff, Pinckney; so if we take Van Damme’s 50,000 salary for Cyborg, Net, he’d be at a loss of -433,000. No wonder why at the time he claimed he wouldn’t film in the US anymore for fear of being sued; he’s of course since had a change of heart. So that leads to an interesting point overall. The fight scenes in Van Damme movies certainly look and seem more impactful than the fight scenes in a lot of other movies. I guess that’s good for the audience, but no so much the stuntmen.