The stuido thought Kurt Russel was not a big star enough so they brought in Steven Seagal to trick the audience. He got 1 million a day for the job.
Source: The man himself and as you all know he isn't full of *beep*
http://www.craveonline.com/film/interviews/199269-a-funny-guy-steven-seagal-on-maximum-conviction
Russell was a VERY big star in 1996. Seagal's cameo is, ironically, one of his better acting jobs. A further note: much of the film's suspense would be gone if the obvious badass had made it onto the plane.
shareI remember the stories in the press at the time about WB being unhappy with Seagal's actions during filming of On Deadly Ground & Under Siege 2. They wanted their contract with him done so they forced the producers to shoehorn him in here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7HuQy35XtQ
I knew Seagal was not going to be in the film for very long, because his name does not appear in the opening credits. That is pretty much a dead giveaway that his character would get killed off.
I am not sure why the studio would think that Seagal was a bigger star than Kurt Russell, since Russell is a far better actor. This film was also released during the time when people started to not give a crap about Seagal anymore, and the film, while it did make some money, was the not as big of a hit as the studio was hoping for it to be.
It was nice to see Seagal back in a decent big budget movie. His only one since Under Siege.
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