75-year-old former Governor and action movie icon Arnold Schwarzenegger says the failure of 1993’s action comedy “Last Action Hero,” his first big flop after his breakout success nine years earlier in James Cameron’s “The Terminator,” hit him hard.
Schwarzenegger starred as the fictional action hero character Jack Slater in the John McTiernan-directed film about a young movie fan (Austin O’Brien) who, dealing with the death of his father, receives a magical ticket from a theater employee that transports him into an action movie.
Reflecting on the experience in Netflix’s new three-part docuseries “Arnold,” the actor talked about his early hits and misses including the 1993 meta satire of movies, which was a critical and commercial bomb.
It turns out that failure Schwarzenegger took rather personally, the actor saying:
“When Last Action Hero came out, I had reached my peak after Terminator 2 having the most successful movie of the year worldwide. I cannot tell you how upset I was. It hurts you. It hurts your feelings. It’s embarrassing.”
Arnie’s long-time collaborator James Cameron says he phoned the man on the weekend after the film opened:
“He sounded like he was in bed crying. He took it as a deep blow to his brand. I think it really shook him. I said, ‘What are you gonna do?’. He said, ‘I’m just gonna hang out by myself.’ That’s the only time I’ve ever heard him down.”
Schwarzenegger then added that he “didn’t want to see anyone for a week”, but he kept plodding along and took his mother-in-law’s advice “Let’s just move forward” to heart.
He then saw the 1991 French film “La Totale!” which he wanted to remake, he took the idea to Cameron, and 1994’s “True Lies” was born. Cameron says:
“Arnold’s bringing me a project that he believes in. He’d never done that before. I thought we could have fun with comedy. I know he had done comedy. He has a good sense of humor.”
“Last Action Hero” made $137.3 million worldwide off an $85 million budget. The film has not undergone a major critical reappraisal in the years since, though Arnie himself says he’s gotten far more positive feedback on it in recent times. The film certainly has a contingent of vocal online fans.
Meanwhile, “True Lies” was widely well-regarded and made $378 million worldwide the following year.
Source: EW
