The Condemned

The Condemned, starring wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones, was released in 2007 by WWE Films before they became WWE Studios in 2008. WWE films is a subsidiary of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. which was founded by Vince McMahon. Their first film was The Scorpion King starring The Rock, now called Dwayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson is slated to star in an upcoming movie based on the TV series The Fall Guy starring Lee Majors and Heather Thomas.

The plot of The Condemned has similarities to The Hunger Games except The Hunger Games movie came out in 2012 and the book it was based on came out in 2008, a year after The Condemned hit theaters. The Condemned features criminals who are sent to an island to fight each other to the last man or woman standing. They have bombs secured around their ankles with 30-hour countdown timers and a grenade-like pin with a ten-second delay should they want to blow themselves up before the 30 hours are up. The event is broadcast live on the internet by a smug, ruthless television producer who offers freedom to the winner. Actually, both movies bear similarities to a Japanese movie released in 2000 called Battle Royale which was adapted from the Battle Royale book published in 1999. Battle Royale features students who are gassed, sent to a remote island, have explosive collars placed around their necks for compliance, and are forced to kill each other in the annual government-sponsored Battle Royale. If you want to go back further, there was 1987’s Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger which featured criminals forced to play in a government- broadcasted game show where they fight each other to the death in order to be the last remaining competitor, who is rewarded with a pardon. These movies and others with similar plots are hybrids of The Most Dangerous Game(1932) which was based on 1924 book, The Most Dangerous Game, which was also published as The Hounds of Zaroff. The Most Dangerous Game is about a big-game hunter named Sanger Rainsford who is shipwrecked on an remote island where another big-game hunter, and palatial chateau owner, General Zaroff, forces Rainsford to be his prey, with the opportunity for freedom should he evade his armed servant Zaroff and a pack of hunting dogs for three days.

Steve Austin has been working steadily since the release of The Condemned in movies and television, as well as voice-acting in video games. Watch Condemned trailer here.