He did a wonderful job with great character. At the time the movie was made his career was well past its peak, so its not like he would have had better offers.
shareI think I read something about Kirk Douglas never does sequel.
Show me the holes!
He was notoriously difficult on the set. He expected the set to be like a typical Hollywood set, but it was shot in Australia and those budgets are simply not available to us. There is a lot of gorilla style film making in Australia simply for that reason. We have to find cheaper ways to do what Hollywood does with the push of a button. That's still the case, so you can imagine what it was like in the early 80's.
Also, he was dealing with Australians, who didn't take too kindly to his attitude, and didn't indulge it. IMO it was probably a case of him having a stringent set of conditions to return and do the second one and they said "sorry, we don't want you, the film has enough international cred to stand on its own without a headliner like Douglas" - which at that point, it did. The funds also wouldn't have been there to indulge his demands. That's just my opinion though.
I also heard that he had a falling out with the producer or director, someone high up like that. Not sure, but it was pretty bitter at the time.
shareIt definitely sucked that he wasn't in the sequel. I hate when they change people. I know that much of the second film centered around the father, but it would have been better for me if they wrote him out, or something. I enjoyed the second film, but I had to put it in my mind that the two films weren't connected. The dad swap didn't bug me so much then! Lol
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