Rollerball

Rollerball is set in a near future where a brutal new sport has become a global spectator attraction. Players race on motorbikes and skates, fighting for control of a heavy metal ball, and the game's creator, Alexi Petrovich, markets the violence to ever larger audiences. Jonathan Cross, a former extreme-sports athlete, is recruited by his friend Marcus Ridley to join a team in Central Asia, where he becomes a star alongside teammate Aurora. As the competition grows more dangerous and the promoter manipulates matches to boost ratings, Jonathan comes to understand that the spectacle is built on the players' lives.

John McTiernan directed the film, which sits between The 13th Warrior and Basic in his filmography. The screenplay is by Larry Ferguson and John Pogue, and the cast includes Chris Klein as Jonathan, LL Cool J as Marcus, Rebecca Romijn as Aurora, Jean Reno as Petrovich and Naveen Andrews as Sanjay. It is a German, American and Japanese co-production with a budget of 70 million dollars that returned about 26 million worldwide.

Reception was poor. On IMDb it holds 3.2 out of 10 from roughly 31,000 votes, and on TMDB 3.9 out of 10 from around 527 votes. A critics' rating of 2.8 out of 10 from 118 reviews places it below even the modest audience scores.