Was it a movie? Was it a shift in society change? Was it his age?
Did somebody or something poke the balloon and suggest 'Hey, this guy really isn't a movie star anymore time to move on'.
I've seen this with other careers of once SUPER HOT movie stars:
Robin Williams
Jim Carrey
Tom Hanks
Harrison Ford
...something pokes the balloon and the air lets out. And suddenly you go from being hot/cool to cold/failure.
Specifically what are you referring to?? The man has made amazing movies, when exactly did you feel he jumped the shark??
sharePrecisely what I am asking BKB.
shareProbably when he got elected.
shareNo. I thought about that. But there was a flop after flop until T3 (2003) the same year as the recall.
Something went wrong in the 90's with his career.
The 90s seemed okay for Arnold. I don't know.
shareWell there was T2 (1991) and later the follow up picture was a flop and then James Cameron came to the rescue with True Lies (1994).
Eraser (1995) was his last so-called "hit" until T3 a decade later, but even while it made $100 million I think most people who followed his career and take a good look at the numbers might think that was the 'cool' period before he went cold.
Some movie stars sometimes get lucky and are able to "fall back" into a franchise/sequel in hopes of the follow up picture being a 'hit' and therefore their career becomes relevant and such and their still "hot" and hope to strike oil with a follow-up.
This wasn't the case for the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
If that makes sense?
Yeah that makes sense. You're probably right then, it would have been the 90s.
shareOr think of it this stupid way. It's 1975 and you bring a lunch box with "The Fonz" of Happy Days and suddenly your invited to the cool kids table.
At the same school, a different kid in 1980 brings "The Fonz" of Happy Days lunch box to the table and suddenly everyone laughs at him/her.
Everybody goes nuts eventually when treated like a king for too long. Celebs with lots of cash live in a totally different reality. Last time Arnold lived like a normal person was in the 60s. He has no clue about what's going on in the real world since then. Completely cut off from reality living inside his own rich people bubble, only having conversations with his rich people bubble buddies. Commoners he sees and treats as servants.
Hell, Tucker Carlson (another wealthy dude) doesn't even know how a supermarket works. Perfect example for how out of touch those people are.
IDK about Tucker.
But I hear you. It sounds like he had a very bad agent or massive ego.
Or both.
Enter 1994:
"Hey, I've got a great idea...how about you join up with Danny DeVito again but this time you become pregnant".
The obvious follow-up answer should have been:
WTF? and then walked out and fired his agent.
I call this the 'in between hits' phase.
You are right. "Junior" was the end!
I did hear Tucker talking about the way some of the more modern food stores operate... I didn't even know that they operated like that, and I live on long Island about an hour away from the city. Outside of the big cities, supermarkets don't work the way that he was explaining- AND I HOPE THEY NEVER DO! That $h!t was freaky.
Junior and then Batman And Robin.
The End.
Or the End of Days: ??
From boxofficeguru.com:
http://www.boxofficeguru.com/112999.htm
"Moviegoers spent $20.5M watching Arnold Schwarzenegger battle Satan in the new supernatural thriller End of Days. The Universal release finds the action star protecting a young woman who was chosen to mate with the devil before the year 2000. Opening in 2,592 theaters, End of Days averaged a fiery $7,918 per site and grossed $31.5M over the five-day weekend. While the opening performance was very good, it was not spectacular and did not reach the Friday-to-Sunday heights of many of Schwarzenegger's previous action films. Terminator 2 debuted with $31.8M in 1991, True Lies opened with $25.9M in 1994, Total Recall premiered with $25.5M in 1990, and Arnold's last headlining film Eraser debuted with $24.6M.
Universal reported that End of Days fared best with the male action crowd and performed well across ethnic and urban areas. Once the world's biggest box office star, Schwarzenegger needed a hit in order to justify his stature in the industry and to prove that unlike his action hero peers (Stallone, Seagal, Van Damme) he can still draw large audiences into the multiplexes with an explosive thrilling picture.
Funny you mentioned that End Of Days.
I was thinking about that but when I saw his films' years, thought that was already over the hump.
Plus, weirdly, I do recall when that came out the thought that Arnie was past it and it seemed embarrassing. Wasn't until many years later I actually got around to seeing it. And I still don't think I've ever seen Eraser.
Somebody else mentions Last Action Hero, which was another one I didn't see at the time. I think the tone of that was pretty similar to True Lies, i.e. he's fully into self parody mode even then, but Junior coming after these probably cooked his goose.
"The Last Action Hero" wasn't terrible. However, flowing "Terminator 2" with THAT movie was a bad idea. Maybe if "The Last Action Hero" had come out before "Terminator 2" and "Total Recall" it would have been fine, but it didn't. "Terminator 2" was revolutionary in its use of special effects. So, after that people were expecting something even bigger and better. Unfortunately, Arnold's next movie was a parody of action movies and people did NOT want to see that. Mostly because all the action movies of the time WERE pretty much parodies of the action genera. Were they good? Yes, they were. However, none of them were realistic.
I did think that "End of Days" was kind of okay, but I remember thinking (much like you) that Arnold was past his prime and wasn't going to fit in with the newer generation of actors. So, I had pretty much lost interest in his film's years prior to its release. The only reason that I did see it was because my mom rented it on VHS, and I figured that I would give it a shot. Another problem with that movie is that Robin Tunney didn't look very good in it. She looked incredible in that witch movie she did, but the makeup department made her look frumpy in this. It was unrealistic that the emperor of darkness was going after someone that looked like her. It's a shame because she was usually good looking.
She went from this
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Frobin-tunney-the-craft-1996-v0-o19yzt2oytmb1.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D86fd9d5d113076034cc9506c385d479344845e07
To this
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNWVlOWNmYWEtZjAzZi00ZTcxLWJjZGQtNGE5ZTFjODY2MWY4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTcwNTE1Ng@@._V1_.jpg
It wasn't her fault. It was the makeup department's fault.
Also, Arnold was on a WWF broadcast at the time doing color commentary in order to hype the release of "End of Days" and his commentary was awful as he had no idea what he was watching. I tuned in just to hear him, but it was so AWFUL I tuned out in about 5 minutes! He probably lost ticket sales due to that.
Here's a bit of that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj8TmXbfKds
To be honest, now I think it's hysterically amazing, but at the time I remember thinking "This guy is a relic. What is he doing here." Still, I wish I could hear the entire thing.
I never saw "Eraser" or "The Sixth Day". Even when they first came out, they just seemed...well, kind of dated in a weird way.
I think a lot of people thought of Arnold as THE 80s GUY. He along with Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford pretty much owned the decade. So, no matter what Arnold did in the late 90s and early 2000s it probably wouldn't have mattered much. So, whereas Ford and Gibson had serious acting chops and were able to be versatile and adapt, Arnold wasn't and was viewed as a product of his time. Also, action films changed in the late 90s and early 2000s. They became darker and grittier (just think Pulp Fiction). I'm not saying that they were better films than their 1980s counterparts, they were just different. Sadly, Arnold wasn't really able to adapt to the change.
Arnold also never really rebounded after "The Last Action Hero". Yeah, he had "True Lies" which is a fun movie, but that was the only film that he had that could measure up to Terminator, Terminator 2, Predator, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Total Recall and the first Conan film.
Personally, he lost me when he made "Junior".
oh wow, you literally line up with me on EVERY single point. or, rather, i line up on every point you typed here (since you typed it and i am ersponding, not vice versa lol)
yes, junior was a WTF moment. agree on LAHero. i remember trying to like true lies but dismissing it as kinda overblown. and honestly, you nailed it when you said he really hasn't done anything of note after T2
totally agree on that one bro.
if i stop and ponder it, arnold actually had a short 'prime' era. i'd say 84 to 90 (nicely bookended between two terminator movies.
all the subsequent terminator movies were yawn fests for me. as for his other attempts, like end of days and 6th day and eraser and collateral damage, etc. he was trying, but it just didn't come off the right way anymore.
arnold had a real golden zone, during the second half of the 80s. then he was (IMHO) only riding on momentum, which was substantial to be sure, but at that point the goal (for him and his crews) was probably more about making money than making great films.
his earlier films were really good, but he hung around too long at the party. i can't remember when he became governor but that may have been an attempt to segue, dunno
yep, good post, enigmatic.
cheers!
I always felt that the only reason that he did T3 without James Cameron is because he wanted to end his film career on a high note before he segued into politics.
True Lies was enjoyable for what it was, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as anything from his (as you put it) 84-90 run. Great observation about the two Terminator films.
In my opinion he should have stopped making movies after True Lies came out. I didn't think it was that great, but it was a big hit and if he had stopped making movies after it, the whole world would have been waiting for him to put out another film. That way, we would have been spared movies like End of Days, The 6th Day, Eraser, Bat Man, Collateral Damage etcetera. While none of those movies were beyond terrible, they were subpar compared to his 80s and 90s heyday.
Arnold just didn't fit in with the way that action movies changed in the 1990s. This isn't anything against him as an action hero. Almost every 1980s muscle guy had real problems in the late 1990s. Stallone (who had major writing and acting talent) was the only one who eventually recovered. Amazingly Stallone became an even bigger icon than just about any other 1980s action star. I would probably go as far as to say that he wound up being a bigger and more respected icon than Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford. The rebound of Stallone is nothing short of amazing. Stallone also didn't surrender to being (as Arnold said when he still had a set) a girly-man. I actually think that that also heled him a lot. Men-REAL MEN (which most men still are) don't buy into that pansy garbage. Which Arnold succumbed to.
Anyway, back to Arnold. Could you imagine if he quit making films after True Lies. His eventual return to films would have been huge. But he just didn't know when to take a break. I think him saying "Screw your freedoms", telling us everything was going to be okay during the lockdowns while he was smoking a stogie in his hot tub, his obsession with Greta Doomberg, and finally endorsing Kamala Harris was the complete end of his relevance as an action hero. It's like he self-sabotaged.
Anyway, his 84-90 run was awesome. I'm glad that I was around to see it. Although, it sucks to have seen his downfall.
Great Comment!!
Detailed, you took a lot of time.
Thank you.
This thread was awesome. Thank you for starting it.
It was a real pleasure to go through and read everyone's opinions. Best of all everyone was civil, despite having different opinions about when Arnold lost his Mojo. Which was awesome.
This place needs more threads like this.
yes it does. it's kinda like an echo of the old days, which i miss very much.
i ihad discussions similar to this every single day of my life between 2002 and 2014. imdb was my social media back then. then col needham killed it (i hate that asshole)
I liked EOD. Wish Arnold would have stepped out of his traditional roles more.
shareI actually liked End of Days too. I just think it would have been better if someone else had been in the lead. Nothing against Arnold, but by that point he had lost his "IT Factor".
shareallegedly the script was written for tom cruise
shareThat would have worked better. It was a good script. I wonder why he didn't do it.
Like I said, I enjoy the film, but I always thought that Arnold was an odd choice as the lead.
I thought it was interesting in concept. I wish Arnold would have stepped out of his "normal" roles and done something similar to this. He did it one time with Maggie, do it more!
shareEver since Batman & Robin came out I haven't seen of quality or interest out of Arnie.
Has reached a point of no return of being a caricature of himself.
Odd, that all the movies being thrown about in this convo, no-one has mentioned 'Last Action Hero'? (Is it the 'elephant in the room' so to speak?)
That movie alone marked the beginning of the end for Schwarzenegger
I posted a separate post regarding "Last Action Hero." But Columbia was stupid as a deer to open that film against "Jurassic Park".
T2 was arguably Schwarzenegger's peak in 1991 and while "Last Action Hero" flopped James Cameron brought him back to the A-List with "True Lies".
Then "Eraser", another $100 million dollar film (domestically) a few years later.
I think you're right seagal72, the poke the balloon was definetely "Last Action Hero".
And back to my theory of the kid in 1980 with the "Fonz" lunchbox.
What's somewhat ironic here, is back in the 1980's and 90's and even into the 2000's, nobody paid much attention to the WW box office.
It had been always exclusively in the United States.
'True Lies' (whilst a hit) is just as much (if not more) a Cameron movie than a Schwarzenegger movie.
I wrote a long lengthy post about this (probably somewhere on Armies MovieChat board) which pretty much covered Stallone decline too.
Personally, I thinks its down to a few factors:
Audience tastes changing: Rom-coms, which were relatively cheaper to make, were just as big in the 90's as action movies were in the 80's.
The advance of CGI (which Schwarzenegger helped usher in alongside Cameron) soon enabled anyone or anything to be (literally) anyone or anything. This is also true of one-time martial-artist actors (Seagal, Van Damme) because now the likes of Keanu Reeves or Drew Barrymore could be martial artists.
Once upon a time, Schwarzenegger *was* the special-effect of the movie...but when your defining signature role depends on your physique...then time eventually dictates your sell-by date.
Whereas Stallone had franchises (and actual acting, writing and directing chops) to fall back onto that were primarily based in reality...Schwarzenegger cut a pretty pathetic figure as a 60+ year old cyborg.
So, all those factors (added alongside a series of well-documented flops) is my take on Schwarzeneggers downfall.
1993 was his first loss...but although he may have returned with True Lies, other movies didn't fare as well.
Plus his heart attack/problems (circa 96/97) wouldn't have helped either.
I'm thinking the main reason Arnold lost relevance was simply he couldn't act AND he kept on wanting a bigger paycheck than his previous movie(he brags about this in his book).
But yeah, back to his acting. In the 80's all the way up to T2 in 1991 Arnold played fun characters that didn't really have to speak much..in other words he didn't have to act. He was the Terminator, Alpha male Colonel Matrix in Commando, Spec Ops Dutch in Predator, Copter Pilot Captain Ben Richards in The Running Man, Genetic miracle twin Julius in Twins, and Hard hat Quaid/Houser in Total Recall and a nicer but still lethal killer robot in T2. These characters were bad assess in good, fun, movies. Arnold could do no wrong.
So, after T2 Arnold had been a HUGE Box Office champion for almost a decade. He smartly took a year off and came back with Last Action Hero. This film is a notorious mess, mostly because the studio(Sony) interfered and rushed it to the theaters with a botched editing job. Even the director was pissed off about how badly Sony ruined this movie. Arnold quickly rebounded by getting back with James Cameron for True Lies and that was Arnold's last true movie success, even though I think the movie is pretty boring it made decent bank as the 3rd biggest Box Office draw of 1994.
So, the wheels came off in 1993 with LAH a sharp rebound with TL in 1994 but that was short lived, really the end. After that he tried to play more complex characters, like he was a real actor or something, which he certainly WAS NOT. That 10 year run from 1984-1994 was the real charasmatic, fun loving Arnold. I remember going to see End of Days and didn't he play a lovey dove policeman who was a family man that missed his wife and daughter? That's something for Dustin Hoffman to play, not a huge bodybuilder/action star like our Arnie. So that's what kind of movies he was in. I will say that his iceman role in Batman and Robin was actually more his speed..End of part 1.
Beginning of Part 2: and I enjoyed Arnold's fun loving nature in Batman and Robin it wasn't his fault they made the movie too long Arnie did great. But then Arnold did ask for a TON of money to play Iceman, like a million dollars a day. That movie bombed and I think after that the bean counters got involved and figured out that raising Schwarzenegger's salary by 5 million each movie wasn't a good business decision. That's probably why he ended up with lesser and lesser movies like End of Days, The 6th Day(TWO straight movies with the word "Day" in it, strange and not a good idea AT ALL), & Collateral Damage.
In short, I don't think just one movie destroyed Arnies career. Sure, LAH was a dud but he quickly rebounded from that. I think Arnold just veered way too far away from his True Self, a super big/muscular, charismatic, fun loving, bad ass action star.
In this post-#metoo age, no one wants to mention his adultery and 10-year divorce from Maria Shriver?
I don't think any man would care about that. Yeah, it was a $h!tty thing to do, but Hollyweird is pretty much nothing but $h!tty people.
His star faded long before that me too stuff began. It faded almost two decades before it began.
Two things: getting older, and someone discovering that he'd cheated on his wife with a housekeeper years ago, and produced a love child as a result.
It didn't help that he got into California politics, which can get pretty dicey if you're not a Democrap.
When I was a kid, Arnold was easily the most famous person in the world. I think his career was on high gear 1982-1993 but it was LAST ACTION HERO that started the tarnishing of his legacy. The movie was just too big, too hyped up, and too big of a box office disappointment to really fully recover from, even though he made a few decent movies afterward (namely TRUE LIES). The ongoing issue with a lot of his comedy movies like KINDERGARTEN COP, TWINS, JUNIOR, JINGLE ALL THE WAY, etc was that he was starting to look too much like a parody of an action star instead of a serious one, so TRUE LIES was his last hurrah as it balanced out the comedy and action so well. When ERASER came along and tried to "serious him up" again, it made a decent amount of money but it really didn't work. That was his last real "Arnold" movie, and then END OF DAYS, which was a giant under-lit and boring embarrassment of a movie, was the last movie where he still looked like himself.
He just got a little too old for his schtick by the time 6TH DAY came around and he looked awkward and ungainly trying to relive his TOTAL RECALL glory days. It was a fun film but sadly not because of him. COLLATERAL DAMAGE tried pathetically to turn him into an everyman thrust into action and had an overly convoluted plot that couldn't decide if the movie was meant to be silly or realistic.
T3 was "okay" but really an unnecessary sequel and we knew he was starting to age out of the role. Then he became governor and his career went to sleep, from which it never really woke up. Then his reputation took a major hit with the lovechild scandal, he returned to screen with two duds with Stallone and Johnny Knoxville and the novelty of seeing Arnold fighting and shooting people wore off extremely quickly. He then tried acting a couple times but by then he was "yesterday's news". So there were many turning points along the way but I'd put the beginning of the decline as 1993 and 2000 as when he wasn't "Arnold" anymore.
In some ways, it is miraculous that Arnold Schwarzenegger became a major movie star at all -- it was like a high wire act from which he finally fell and -- crucially -- a masterful self-promoting "long con" that finally ran out of steam (though not really -- he is STILL, today , keeping up the con job as if to say anything too truthful about where he ended up would ruin the dream forever.)
Part of this was Arnold's own doing, but part of it was "the luck of his era."
Had Arnold come of age in earlier years, he might have had supporting "strongman roles" (like Peter Lupus on Mission:Impossible) or TV roles (like Ron Ely -- passed away this week as I post this in 2024; its November 1; he died in October -- who was Tarzan for two seasons.) There would have been no real star roles in movies for him in the 60s.
The shift of "Western gunslinger hero" roles to "action cop roles" with "Dirty Harry" in 1971 made Clint Eastwood a superstar and paved the way for Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson and others to become "action stars" in the 70s (even as Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and "new guy" Lee Marvin aged out of them -- while John Wayne split Westerns and cop roles to the end.) But the 70s wasnt right for Arnold either, movie-star wise.
So he chose another superstardom for the 70's -- bodybuilder . I recall him in advertisements in sports magazines(the tabloid ones, not Sports Illustrated) in the late 60s. His name was a joke to kids, his body was "too much" and once he got to talk on screen -- that accent added to the "camp" quality.
CONT
The 80s was ready for him. The "gritty semi-documentary" thrills of The French Connection and Death Wish, and the artistic ultra-violence of The Wild Bunch, gave way to "more cartoonish action movies." Some critics said it was like movies suddenly were written like TV cop show episodes. Some critics said that the big budgets suddenly went to "B movies." (Which is why REAL B movies like The Thing and The Blob and The Fly got big horror movie budgets.)
I see "Commando" -- a few films in for Arnold -- as the movie that crystallized how his stardom would function in much of the 80s. A VERY easy-to-follow plot, wall to wall action with wall to wall one-liners ("I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last.") Definitely a B movie with an A budget. Followin Sly's more serious and political Rambo with a pop sensibility.
But to get to "Commando," Arnold needed his two big breaks.
One was inevitiable: John Milius' movie of "Conan the Barbarian" -- a movie for which Arnold was the ONLY star that fit perfectly (and he wasn't really a movie star -- he was a MUSCLEMAN star.)
One was a surprise: The Terminator -- with Arnold's accent and stiff acting perfectly served by the ultimate villain role(a robot) under the direction of a guy we had no idea would shoot straight to the top: James Cameron.
And then Commando rode the coattails of "Rambo" and Arnold's full quest for stardom began.
Arnold INVITED his fans along to join him in HELPING him build his star career, year by year as if to say "Look, I keep getting bigger budgets and bigger movies -- HELP me become a superstar."
Raw Deal. Predator(a big one for him.) Red Heat(a bit of a step back.)
And then he took another step to "diversify": comedy. Twins. A hit. Kindergarten Cop. Another hit(mixing some of his murderous action movie violence with kiddie comedy.)
CONT
And then as noted above in other posts. The peak of Terminator 2. The misstep of The Last Action Hero(defeated by Jurassic Park even as Arnold jokingly promoted his movie as "The Biggest Movie of the Summer.") The "save" of True Lies(James Cameron came through with a "Big A movie" and a good James Bond role for Arnold.) The comedy misfire of Junior.The deflated Eraser. And the death blow: Batman and Robin(defeated THAT summer by Jurassic Park 2.)
It happened pretty quickly after that. You could see the budgets shrink, the good directors disappear, the scripts lessen. Arnold was removed from Planet of the Apes(Mark Wahlberg got the role) and I Am Legend(Will Smith got the role.)
Arnold got another big save. He ran for and won the Governorship of California (in a special recall election that alllowed Arnold to jump past other Republican candidates -- sort of like Kamala Harris got to do with Democrat competitors in 2024.) It was ironic -- Arnold jumped to politics to avoid further humiliation as a falling star -- and did something pretty incredible on its own in politics. SAVED again. (He ran as a Republican but turned much of his administration over to Democrats via his then-wife Maria Shriver of the Kennedy family.)
Two terms as Governor ended and now Arnold's out there as a survivor, acting like he never lost it. The con continues.
And as someone somewhere noted, his "negatives" became positives. That name ("Schwarzenegger" alone on posters; "Arnold" as a nickname.) That accent (EVERYBODY could do impressions of him, including SNL.) That acting style (he would never follow Mel Gibson into Oscar movies, but it fit what he did.)
Pretty amazing run. Sealed by the action cartoon movies of the 80s, aided by James Cameron, saved by politics.
Begun as a muscleman.
Funny how I had totally blanked out on BATMAN AND ROBIN as though the movie never existed. I've never actually sat down and watched it, even though I remember watching BATMAN FOREVER in the theater. I remember the bad word of mouth and bad reviews totally killed my interest in seeing it, coupled with how disappointed I was with the "zany atmosphere" of the prior Batman, which I assumed (correctly) was even in more high gear in the 4th one.
After TERMINATOR, Arnold carefully crafted his image (especially with COMMANDO) as being a likeable wise-cracking action star and never took on villain roles for over a decade. When BATMAN came along, he decided to do it I believe as a novelty, and also as a "save" as mentioned before because his mainline starring roles were starting to fall off at the box office. When that movie got slammed by the critics and his performance widely panned, I think that was a big nail in the coffin for his superstardom. Fans were starting to turn on him, looking at him as more of a joke/parody than a serious action star. His "save" there was a bit of a hail-Mary throw which only accelerated his decline.
I wonder what would have been the smarter move for him in the critical stage of the mid-to-late 90's after TRUE LIES? Should he have ignored the high-paying comedy roles and used his clout to force the production of CONAN 3? It could have worked a lot better but only if it was actually a well-received, hardcore action movie directed by a brawny director like Milius, McTiernan or Walter Hill. He then could have pivoted to doing bad guy roles and more dramatically challenging stuff to have a lot more success in there for the next 10 years and enjoyed a stronger legacy, though maybe not have made as much money.
Funny how I had totally blanked out on BATMAN AND ROBIN as though the movie never existed.
---
I suppose many people feel that way.
I recall how Patrick Stewart of Star Trek was first announced as Mr. Freeze for that movie(or at least mentioned) but soon Arnold got the part and -- he was still big enough that it looked like a great career move.
Arnold followed Jim Carrey in ALMOST matching Jack Nicholson's star power as a Batman villain(except Jack had decades of stardom and two Oscars at the time.)
Maybe if the script had been better, Arnold would have triumphed. But the script was BAD and Arnold got nothing but "cold-ice-freeze" one liners as dialogue. (He also rather tried to make sure that Mr. Freeze, despite killing some people somehow swerved back to good guy hood at the end.)
Arnold had already been wounded by The Last Action Hero and everything EXCEPT True Lies by the time that Batman and Robin failed(and Titanic proved that True Lies was about James Cameron as much as about Arnold.) "Hollywood power brokers" KNEW that True Lies was a fluke for Arnold.
Hollywood power brokers ALSO knew that -- unlike other action men Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis, and Mel Gibson -- Arnold really didn't have the serious acting chops to take on serious roles in serious movies. That's why Arnold tried to diversfy into ...comedy. He knew his limitations. So did the money men, unfortunately.
--
CONT
I've never actually sat down and watched it, even though I remember watching BATMAN FOREVER in the theater.
---
They were pretty much the same movie. I would suggest that bringing Robin in to the two movies killed the "James Bond solo hero" aspect of the franchise. But Joel Schumacher (on orders from Warners) rather kiddie-ed up the franchise and threw the movies to his superstars(Carrey and Arnold, to a lesser extent Tommy Lee Jones and Uma Thurman).
---
I remember the bad word of mouth and bad reviews totally killed my interest in seeing it, coupled with how disappointed I was with the "zany atmosphere" of the prior Batman, which I assumed (correctly) was even in more high gear in the 4th one.
---
You are correct. Also, Batman and Robin came out only two years after Batman Forever, a bit of overkill.
Batman and Robin hurt several careers -- Chris O'Donnell and Uma Thurman were also victims -- but none more than Arnold's. (Somehow George Clooney survived -- but didn't make many OTHER hits, either.) Arnold was already on thin ice...he started getting smaller budgets or removed from projects immediately.
CONT
I wonder what would have been the smarter move for him in the critical stage of the mid-to-late 90's after TRUE LIES?
--
That's a good question. TRUE LIES really WAS a major movie, a summer hit, very exciting in the action sequences. But Arnold wasn't getting terribly major offers.
To be fair, a LOT of male movie stars hit bad patches. Long careers at the top weren't guaranteed. Sly Stallone stalled out after Rambo 3 in 1988 (his "comeback" wouldnt come until Cliffhanger i 1993), Eddie Murphy went from red-hot to pretty cold even as he worked all the time -- in ever less major movies. Even Jack Nicholson hit a cold period between Cuckoo's Nest and Terms of Endearment(less the very famous Shining.) Harrison Ford lost altitude with "Hollywood Homicide."-- But it was more dangerous for Arnold because his career was kind of a fluke.
CONT
I wonder what would have been the smarter move for him in the critical stage of the mid-to-late 90's after TRUE LIES?
---
A great question, because TRUE LIES retained superstar charisma for Arnold..while at the same time showing his line-reading limitations.
--
Should he have ignored the high-paying comedy roles
---
I'll bet he thought that "Jingle All the Way" would be both a comedy hit AND a modern Christmas perennial. Oops. "Elf" it wasn't.
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and used his clout to force the production of CONAN 3? It could have worked a lot better but only if it was actually a well-received, hardcore action movie directed by a brawny director like Milius, McTiernan or Walter Hill. He then could have pivoted to doing bad guy roles and more dramatically challenging stuff to have a lot more success in there for the next 10 years and enjoyed a stronger legacy, though maybe not have made as much money.
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All of those ideas -- and those directors -- could have possibly changed the Arnold trajectory. The kind of careers that Clint Eastwood and Sean Connery got in their older age was perhaps within reach. But he would have had to "grind down" and turn down the high paid silly stuff to do it.
Oh, well. The years have proved that Arnold made more than enough in his top years to live comfortably forever after. I liked his "little movie" -- The Last Stand -- where he played the aging border town cop, he DID have charisma in older age, even if the paychecks were smaller.
And HE knows, that for about a 20 year period(I'll clock it from Pumping Iron 1977 to Batman and Robin 1997) he was one of the most famous and successful people in the world. And that lasts.
I'd put his only watchable movies since Governatorship as Escape Plan and Expendables 2, which both were heavily flawed and suffered from a lot of cheapness (especially in terms of effects). I nearly got to work on Last Stand but missed out so maybe that put a bad taste in my mouth when I watched it, but it didn't do much for me and I felt Johnny Knoxville hogged the spotlight and ruined the movie. Arnold was also way too sedentary for his "Big action comeback" that it was supposed to be.
But yes, agree on all other points. His career did come and go but he did rake in enough money to be comfortable (and for his kids to be comfortable) for decades to come no matter what they do.
I was wondering if my friends and I were somehow lucky enough to score him appearing in an Indie we make and gave him top billing, it might result in an extra hundred people-or-so actually paying to see the movie. Did anyone actually watch "Killing Gunther"? Sadly he just isn't a draw anymore unless it's a movie with a terminator in it, and even then the movies are now bombs.
I'd put his only watchable movies since Governatorship as Escape Plan and Expendables 2, which both were heavily flawed and suffered from a lot of cheapness (especially in terms of effects).
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The very first Expendables -- with Sly(as the actual star), Arnold and Bruce doing a cameo scene together - sort of announced that 80s/90s action was effectively over -- even as each man clearly carried a history and each man had his own special charisma(like they say, true stars are "one of a kind" -- there's only one Blue Boy painting.) I sort of felt that Arnold "out-charismaed" the other two guys, he aged well.
As I recall -- these things fade fast -- Arnold and Bruce played a few more scenes -- including the climax -- in Expendables 2, so I felt that was the best one. Of course, soon we had Mel Gibson(whose career crashed very suddenly, with no "decline") and Harrison Ford(a fairly prestige guy) showing up. They never got Clint, though.
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I nearly got to work on Last Stand but missed out so maybe that put a bad taste in my mouth when I watched it, but it didn't do much for me and I felt Johnny Knoxville hogged the spotlight and ruined the movie. Arnold was also way too sedentary for his "Big action comeback" that it was supposed to be.
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Been a long time since I've seen it, but I rather liked the "High Noon" aspects and some of the co-stars(Knoxville was actually a "name" then, if a weak one.) I might add that I've been liking Arnold with a beard -- helps his aged look.
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But yes, agree on all other points. His career did come and go but he did rake in enough money to be comfortable (and for his kids to be comfortable) for decades to come no matter what they do.
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Yes. Arnold really WAS a superstar, no matter that it ended eventually. (I forgot to add the surge in international markets as helping him and the other muscle guys.) He did the hard work to move up from bodybuilding to B movies to As...and then through in a political win in a big state, overcoming "the local machinery" to do so.
AND: NO modern star -- especially male stars -- ever needs to go broke. "Streaming, baby." Sly has Tulsa King, Arnold has FUBAR...and when those conk out...they'll do other things, no matter how old they get(see: Clint.)
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I was wondering if my friends and I were somehow lucky enough to score him appearing in an Indie we make and gave him top billing, it might result in an extra hundred people-or-so actually paying to see the movie.
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Take the shot! ANY actor who WAS a name is STILL a name and they're just looking for that right script.
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Did anyone actually watch "Killing Gunther"?
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I did. On streaming. I liked it -- but I can't remember it.
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Sadly he just isn't a draw anymore unless it's a movie with a terminator in it, and even then the movies are now bombs.
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A terrible -- but typical -- Hollywood move. Run the property into the ground. Still, "original actors" (Arnold here) can get their biggest paydays for showing up. Shame be damned! The first one(a great low budget indie) and the second one(a historic blockbuster when CGI was "cool and new") are the only two that matter.
I wonder if Arnold could be fitted into someone else's dramatic film in a small part. He's gotten better as a "realistic" actor.
And we now have the sad and totally unexpected "removal" of Bruce Willis as a star able to move forward in any capacity. Talk about historic. Willis had no chance to retire gracefully. But he has become a hero of another type.