Trailer
Plot summary
The United States is a military dictatorship in 2017, and a one-child policy makes a second pregnancy illegal. John Henry Brennick, a former army officer, and his wife Karen try to reach Vancouver for the birth, Karen hiding her pregnancy under a magnetic vest. A guard spots the vest and raises the alarm. John is sentenced to thirty-one years in the Fortress, a maximum security Men-Tel prison built into the desert, where inmates widen the site as slave labor and carry intestinators that punish them with pain or death. Prison Director Poe watches over them through the Zed-10 computer. His fellow inmates include Abraham, a trusty awaiting parole, D-Day, who knows machines and demolition, the young Nino Gomez, and Stiggs. Karen is held inside as well.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Fortress (1992)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger was positioned to headline Fortress but bowed out, cutting the planned budget from $50 million to about $11 million. He had recommended director Stuart Gordon to producer John Davis after watching Re-Animator at his home.
SPOILER
Some versions of Fortress cut the original ending, in which Brennick, his wife and Gomez reach a barn in Mexico as she goes into labor and the prison computer Zed-10 seizes remote control of their truck.- The script was written with Schwarzenegger in mind, but Stuart Gordon wanted a more everyman lead and cast Christopher Lambert, who insisted on doing his own stunts, a point of mild disagreement with the director.
- Stuart Gordon based the prison's look on Pelican Bay State Prison, which he described as having a "Hellish" atmosphere, keeping the design within the realm of possibility despite the film's sci-fi setting.
