Editing Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (section)

== Production ==
=== Development ===
The film was an early credit for [[Matt Reeves]] who wrote the script with a friend of his in college. Reeves later said, "There was a big action spec market, a lot of movies that were selling, and so we wrote this movie with my thought being, ‘And then I will be able to finance my student film and that way I can become a director’."<ref name="matt"/> The script was called ''Dark Territory'' at one stage and ''End of the Line'' at another. When they finished writing it "the spec market crashed and it didn't sell." But the script was optioned by Warner Bros, who decided to turn the film into a sequel to ''Under Siege''.<ref name="matt">{{cite web|url=https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/matt-reeves-dawn-planet-apes/|website=Empire|title=Director Matt Reeves Spills Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Secrets|date=21 July 2014|access-date=9 March 2018|archive-date=26 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160626181720/https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/matt-reeves-dawn-planet-apes/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Reeves said the film was originally "meant to be very much like a ''[[Die Hard]]'' movie, which I guess ''Under Siege'' really was too, except the difference was that in the ''Under Siege'' movies that tension is how soon before Seagal will rip out someone's larynx. And what I love about ''Die Hard'' was this idea of the underdog, that here's this guy, especially in that first movie, who's a cop from New York who doesn't even have shoes. And somehow he has got to save this building, save the day. That was what that movie was supposed to be, but it didn't end up being that."<ref name="matt"/>

=== Filming ===
According to [[Morris Chestnut]] Seagal rewrote many of the scenes he was in. "The only time they really stuck to the script or had ad libs was the stuff when he really wasn't there. It was a lot of stuff, because at that time I think he was flying a helicopter, he was doing something... He would come to set, "Okay, you're gonna say this. I'm gonna say this and this is gonna happen and then you do that." That's how we did a lot of that movie."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.craveonline.com/site/750069-exclusive-interview-morris-chestnut-legends-siege-2#9BOZeTCMp4EYbzwK.99|website=Craveonline|title=EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: MORRIS CHESTNUT ON 'LEGENDS' AND UNDER SIEGE 2|first=Fred|last= Topel|date=August 27, 2014}}</ref>

Part of the film was shot in Chatsworth's Stony Point Park. The production painted some of the boulders, which upset rock climbers who claimed it made them unsafe.<ref>{{cite news|author=Riccardi, N.|date=Apr 7, 1995|title=Rock climbers see red when film crew paints boulders outdoors: Movie company covers over graffiti-and tiny ledges and wrinkles-at two spots in a chatsworth park. climbers blame city for allowing it|work=[[Los Angeles Times]]|id={{ProQuest|293182019}}}}</ref> The locomotive seen in the film had previously appeared in the 1985 film ''[[Runaway Train (film)|Runaway Train]]''. Director Geoff Murphy called making the film "a very dreary process and very highly contentious at the time – lots of arguments and stuff. There was a point during the editing where I observed this incredibly high energy beast emerging, and I didn't know where it had come from, because there wasn't any of that energy on the set. It seemed to grow out of the editing process."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/72483779/Filmmaker-Geoff-Murphy-on-building-a-film-industry-frame-by-painful-frame|website=Stuff|title=Filmmaker Geoff Murphy on building a film industry, frame by painful frame|first=Nikki|last=MacDonald|date=October 3, 2015|access-date=March 9, 2018|archive-date=December 4, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181204102056/https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/72483779/Filmmaker-Geoff-Murphy-on-building-a-film-industry-frame-by-painful-frame|url-status=live}}</ref>