How Does Steven Seagal Still Make Movies?

What came before the Big Bang? Is there life after death? Are we alone in the universe? How does Steven Seagal still make movies? The great mysteries of our era.

How exactly does a washed up and unliked action star like Steven Seagal still makes movies? As of 2019 he has been in about 59. Whatever goodwill and respect he started with has long since been expended and now he is a source of mockery while others of his era still command some respect and admiration even if their stars are no longer shining as bright.

Some like Van Damme and Lundgren are still making movies. While most go straight to DVD there is a level of effort in them because they are trying to make the best movie they can. More importantly both are in great shape for their respective ages and still respected by their fans. Seagal puts in minimal effort in his films to the point of using a body double for simple tasks like walking, he fights sitting down, and even refuses to rerecord lines forcing poor dubbing. Plus he is terribly out of shape. Not that he was ever sculpted to begin with.

I’ve recently taken an interest in Steven Seagal and his films due in large part to the YouTube channel referred to as Space Ice. Not because I feel that they are a particularly great collection of films nor he a great action star, but rather it’s a combination of trying to understand how Seagal ever became popular and how he has descended into someone so strongly disliked. There’s also trying to figure out exactly how this man is able to keep making movies. The budgets are small and the take home is even smaller.

Seagal abruptly became quite popular. Now I admit that his earlier works while certainly not classics (other than Under Siege) are enjoyable guilty pleasures but what we get now are halfhearted ego trips from him. They are to stroke his ego and apparently reinforce his delusions which appear numerous. But that is for another time. 

What’s interesting is that once you start digging into how he’s viewed presently you see just how hated he is. It’s not just nitpicking but a genuine dislike by those that he should be trying to win over in order to pay the bills and justify his career. Strangely enough that hatred has given him a career. People hate watch this man’s movies just to see how bad they are. Maybe I’m engaging in a bit of that but I’m also trying to understand it all, That is if it is a phenomena can be understood. 

Seagal was never a top-tier action star. He was second tier in comparison to the likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone. He was there with the likes of Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Speaking of Van Damme, Seagal seems to have a real beef with him for no discernible reason other than at one point he was and currently still is most of what Steven Seagal claims he is. And the interesting thing about Van Damme is despite years of hearing directly and indirectly the kind of smack Seagal is spewing, he takes the highroad and is the mature one even though by some accounts he himself is a bit on the loony side. His loony appears harmless though.

But how is this man who cozies up to dictators, and some of the worst individuals in the world still able to make movies? They don’t make money and they are not popular. And hate watching only accounts for so much but certainly is not enough to justify a decades long career that peaked in its first few years.

Maybe this is some kind of money laundering scheme. Maybe he sold his soul to the Devil. Or maybe this is just one more unfathomable mystery of the universe.