MARKED FOR DEATH

Steven Seagal plays John Hatcher, a retired DEA agent who returns home to find that America's number one problem is ravaging his old neighborhood, in the form of a fearsome drug-dealer named Screwface. The development of MARKED FOR DEATH began with plans for another film. Introduced by CAA to Michael Grais and Mark Victor, Steven Seagal teamed up with them to produce an action-thriller set in Japan. "When the screenplay was almost finished," says Seagal, "we discovered that Michael Douglas was doing Black Rain; our story was very close to theirs, so we decided to try something else. I was back in Brooklyn and I saw how the gangs of East Jamaicans were starting to come right into suburbia, so we decided to do a film about that. "John Hatcher, the character I play," continues Seagal, "is a man who has retired from the Drug Enforcement Agency after seeing a close friend die during an undercover assignment. Hatcher is a man who feels like he's sticking his finger in a dam that is breaking, and he believes one man can't do anything about it -- that there is nothing the judicial system can do about the narcotics problem in the United States." Seagal observes: "But beyond the justice system, there are people -- people who see these narcotics creeping into the suburbs and say to themselves: 'This is our street, this is our home, this is our house,' and they want to do something about it. "That's what happens to Hatcher, after his retirement. There's a line in the film: 'Ignore them, ignore them -- but when trouble finds you, go after it, and bite its head off.' That's Hatcher, and that's the story." Seagal says that MARKED FOR DEATH was his best experience to date as a producer-star. "Twentieth Century Fox's Joe Roth and Roger Birnbaum were really wonderful to me," he recalls. "They allowed me to use my talents as a filmmaker. It's a pleasure to work with filmmakers who are running a studio in Hollywood -- they understand film, and that is a great asset." The be