10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Condemned

If you ask longtime wrestling fans who would be on their Mount Rushmore of the greatest professional wrestlers of all-time, there is a good chance that the name “Stone Cold” Steve Austin would come up more often than not.

Steve Austin is definitely on my personal professional wrestling Mount Rushmore, but after listening to Austin and Director Scott Wiper on the DVD commentary for 2007’s The Condemned, I can say that Austin is also on my DVD commentary Mount Rushmore (right next to Sam Firstenberg).

It had been a while since I watched The Condemned, a movie where 10 condemned killers are dropped off on an island to fight to the death, with the last man or woman standing getting a second chance at life, so I was already pumped to revisit the film… but throw in the highly entertaining commentary of Steve Austin and Scott Wiper and it multiplied my enjoyment level 316 times.

Now courtesy of that commentary track, I present to you 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Condemned…

1. Steve Austin was originally offered the part of the main antagonist McStarley (the role that would ultimately go to Vinnie Jones) in The Condemned. But when Steve took the script to the WWE CEO/Chairman of the Board Vince McMahon, McMahon insisted that if WWE Studios was going to be involved in the project that Steve needed to be the main protagonist Jack Conrad.

2. The Condemned was shot entirely in Queensland, Australia. One famous Queensland location used was the Boggo Road Gaol, which served as the main jail of Queensland from July 1883 to November 1989. Boggo Road Gaol was where the Petr character was introduced. Ironically Nathan Jones, who played Petr, actually did time at the Boggo Road Gaol years earlier where he earned the nickname of The Colossus of Boggo Road.

3. The filmmakers originally wanted to license Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” as the song playing when the helicopters dropped the 10 condemned killers off on the island that will serve as the battleground for the brutal life or death reality show. But the filmmakers could never get ahold of Axl Rose to get his permission, so Spiderbait’s cover of the classic “Black Betty” got the nod insead.

4. Steve Austin’s stunt double, Mark Wickham, actually busted up his ankle doing the jump from the helicopter.

5. Austin did not leave the filming of The Condemned unscathed. During the Jack Conrad/Paco fight, Manu Bennett (who played Paco) inadvertently gave Austin a black eye. Austin considered delivering a receipt (pro wrestling insider term) to Manu, but thought the better of it.

6. There was a planned scene where Jack Conrad would cut the head off of a snake, but the rubber snake that was going to be used for the scene was “the worst rubber snake in the history of the movie business” according to Austin, so the decision was made not to waste time shooting the scene.

7. Steve Austin, who did all his own fight scenes in the movie, really wanted to do the cable crossing scene himself, but for insurance purposes he was not allowed to.

8. The military base that wealthy television producer Breckel (Robert Mammone) was using to produce “The Condemned” and beam it to viewers across the globe watching on the Internet, was a set that was built for the film. Austin tried to no avail to have the radio control tower, that was part of the military base set, to be shipped back to his ranch in Texas where he planned on using it as a deer stand.

9. Director Scott Wiper would take the fight scenes that Fight Coordinator Richard Norton came up with and break them each down into three to five segments to make them easier on the actors involved.

10. Wiper included an Easter Egg for wrestling fans watching The Condemned… when Breckel removes McStarley’s ankle bracelet, the time on the bracelet read 3 hours and 16 minutes.