Arnold's Banquet Table, and what's on it.

Recently, I've been in contact with our top secret super spy, DR FU MANCHU, and he recently provided me with a rundown on life... according to Arnold Schwarzeneggar. Knowing that this would undoubtedly excite a certain alphabet boy, I decided I had to share...

Arnold Schwarzeneggar is currently shooting, THE SIXTH DAY for Roger Spottiswood, then it looks as if he’ll be shooting COLLATERAL DAMAGE beginning in June 2000 for Andrew Davis. Currently, things are being worked out for him to star in DOC SAVAGE: MAN OF BRONZE for Darabont and Russell. TOTAL RECALL 2 is still on hold with Jonathon “Riker” Frakes directing... but who knows when that’ll go forward. He’s firmly attached to WITH WINGS OF EAGLES, however with no director or time to shoot. Apparently CRUSADE is now over at Fox, and it’s just a matter of scheduling. S*W*A*T, but again... it’s a matter of scheduling. He’s still ‘in discussions’ to do I AM LEGEND for Rob Bowman. He’s still awaiting a script on TRUE LIES 2 and a commitment to shoot from Cameron. He’s got the adaptation of that old Randolf Scott film, SEVEN MEN FROM NOW for Beacon Entertainment. And finally he’s also got UMP and FIRST THROUGH THE DOOR at MGM. And.... Then he’s developing something called BACK COUNTRY.

13 projects.... representing something along the lines of a quarter of a billion dollars of up front salaries and even richer backends. Never mind that in reality, it’d probably be better if George Clooney took S*W*A*T. If TOTAL RECALL 2 never got made. If Mel Gibson took on I AM LEGEND. And if anybody else took COLLATERAL DAMAGE. I believe the key here, is that Arnold finishes up ON THE SIXTH DAY, if he would then go into WITH WINGS OF EAGLES, following that with DOC SAVAGE: MAN OF BRONZE, followed by CRUSADE (and if Verhoeven can’t do it, bring in John Milius!). Next do TRUE LIES 2, thereby giving Cameron time to make a non-sequel as a follow-up to TITANIC. (hint hint... Something like AVATAR or God willing.... a project that we haven’t heard about!)

See this is the conundrum that is Arnold. He gets... A LOT of projects.... All tied up, then begins shuffling and shuffling.... re-writing and re-writing. And at the end of the day, we’re left with... A ton of great projects that are languishing in development hell. Once great scripts being put through the ringer by 5 to 60 writers and coming out looking a bit... standardized. Meanwhile, the great projects are shouldered with gigantic budgets, and Arnold being seemingly unwilling to accept less up front for more backends. As a result... it just takes forever. Personally, I’d like to see Arnold take a realistic look at this gluttonous slate of films, and say begin backing out... and producing some of these movies. Say.... Take I AM LEGEND, plop Vin Diesel in place or George Clooney even.... Make money.... while at the same time seeing the movies GET MADE, as opposed to living on some sort of fictionalized development slate where.... they become ‘SOME DAY’ projects that aren’t likely to ever get made. Meanwhile... He seems to walk up to any project that offers him his upfront, which leads him into the company of deep-pocketed short term companies that want to buy themselves into being major players. Which... is basically the history of Arnold.

Arnold should be making movies like CRUSADE, WITH WINGS AS EAGLES, DOC SAVAGE because these movies will BUILD his legend up. Make him more Iconic. By playing run of the mill action characters in semi-modern settings, Arnold becomes firmly lodged into the era of the Eighties. And what he needs to become is a timeless iconic hero. I don’t know. Perhaps it’s all rhetorical anyways.... He’ll probably end up running for fucking Governor of California and that’ll be the last of him. And we’ll never see the great unmade Arnold films like CRUSADE, WITH WINGS AS EAGLES and DOC SAVAGE. Instead... we’ll see his last films as being a sequel to TRUE LIES, some actionfest called COLLATERAL DAMAGE and maybe... just possibly.... DOC SAVAGE.

Of course... maybe I’m just being cynical about the man. Sigh...