Fans of 1980s/90s action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger have been eagerly awaiting to hear what his next role will be, now that he’s officially returned to acting and retired from politics. There have been rumblings about Terminator 5 for a few weeks now, and Schwarzenegger’s all-too-brief cameo last year in The Expendables set him up for a potentially larger role in the sequel.
Now the former Mr. Olympia (and California governor) has revealed that Terminator isn’t the only ’80s sci-fi/action franchise of his that he’s been approached to revisit – and that a starring role in a comic book movie is on the agenda now as well.
TheArnoldFans were naturally in attendance at the 2011 Arnold Classic this past weekend, where the 63-year-old Schwarzenegger mentioned that he’s received somewhere around fifteen different scripts from studios – including “obvious ones from ‘The Terminator’ to remakes of ‘Predator’ and ‘The Running Man’ and all of those things.”
Schwarzenegger went on to mention that he’s also considering “a lot of original stuff too [and] a comic book character [movie] right now.” He offered no hints as to what those projects might be, but promised that he would make an official announcement about his return to the comic book genre over the next four weeks or so.
Obviously, the Batman & Robin jokes write themselves whenever Schwarzenegger starts talking about comic book movies. However, superhero flicks are as much the rage now as mindless action pics were back in Arnold’s heyday, and it’s not shocking to hear that he’s interested in joining that game. There’s plenty in the way of graphic novel material that doesn’t involve super-powered heroes in eye-catching costumes – so don’t count on seeing Arnold play a masked vigilante just yet.
This is also the first concrete word about remakes of either Predator or The Running Man actually being “in development” and not merely rumored. Some fans might cheer the idea of Schwarzenegger revisiting these titles, but I’m betting most people would consider the idea blasphemy or just plain uninteresting – and the same goes for another Terminator movie. On the other hand, money talks in Hollywood, and if studio heads think they can convince Schwarzenegger to sign up for another battle involving hunter aliens or a Battle Royale-style showdown, they’ll go for it.
Chances are good that Schwarzenegger will pass on any prospective remakes/reboots of his previous films, and will instead move forward with other projects like The Expendables 2 and his comic book flick. He also seems fairly non-committed to the idea of another Terminator movie (“seems” is the key word there), which, if you recall, was not the case with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Perhaps Arnold will just move on to trying some original material and not attempt to profit off the good will built towards his older starring vehicles.
That said – do you want to see Schwarzenegger revisit Terminator, Predator, or The Running Man franchise? And what comic book character would the actor be a good fit to play onscreen?
