We all know when...1995 or 96 or 97 a few clunkers/a few hits and then just a meteor of flop after flop.
But WHY do you think he lost his gig as one of the most bankable stars?
He's old. No one wants to watch geriatric action stars. And he can't act so can't really go into drama. Also too old for comedies like Kindergarten Cop. No genres left.
shareHe was 50 in 1997 about the same time the meteor hit his stratosphere.
So I don't think it was his age. Although that is a valid point.
If he was 50 in 1997, THAT'S OLD ENOUGH ALREADY.
Face it, things come and go, and his time was up long ago. Someone should tell Bruce Willis as well, he's continuing in movies WELL past his prime, too.
Fair enough. But I don't think his age had anything to do with it.
He was 49 and had one of his biggest hits.
There's something more to it.
In the late 90's action fims became more "high-concept" sort of fare which did not suite well his capabilites as a performer. Also, the directors he collaborated with were lesser tier than James Cameron, John McTiernan.
shareI agree:
In the late 90's action fims became more "high-concept" sort of fare
I wonder what pushed that concept out? CGI? Was there some sort of generational shift?
Great post!
shareTotally agree...let's "Fagottize the Film Industry" and stop showing manly heros in manly films.
shareHe was a one trick pony, action movies were all he could really do. And unfortunately the quality of action movie dropped off as the quality of both writers and directors fell. If you look at some of the movies he did after True Lies they were not very memorable and it wasn't really because of him being the star, the stories were weak and the directors were pretty much just going by an almost cookie cutter approach to the films. I don't think it would have mattered who was cast in most of his later movies they would have still be unmemorable flops. So really I don't see a decline in him as the problem as much as a decline in the genre of movies that he was capable of doing.
shareHow does your reply make any sense? If he was 50 when he started his decline then that's exactly in line with what I said. 50 is old for an action star.
shareWhat are you doing here other than embarrassing yourself?
Hanks/Cruise/Eastwood were all/are well above 50 while dominating the box office charts.
Lmao Hanks is an action star? That's news to me. Cruise is an exception to the rule, and Eastwood transitioned into directing once he became older. The only one embarrassing themselves here is you with your fucktarded logic and inconsistent reasoning.
shareNo, he's right, and you're wrong.
Jackie Chan was well into his 50s when he was churning out blockbusters... in America.
Donnie Yen got a massive revival to his career in his late 40s/50s with a trio/quartet of fantastic films that all came out back to back, with SPL Killzone, Flashpoint, and Ip Man (and maybe if you want to count Special I.D.).
Clint Eastwood was well into his 40s before he really hit his stride and was in his 50s still churning out blockbusters, same with Charles Bronson.
Both Vin Diesel and The Rock are also in their 40s heading into their 50s and are the biggest action stars on the planet.
Jason Statham didn't get popular until he hit his 40s!
Liam Neeson became a bona fide action star in his 50s.
Sean Connery was basically white-haired and balding as 007 in Never Say Never Again.
Harrison Ford was still being a box office draw in his 50s as an action hero.
And Bruce Willis was still a box office draw well into his 50s, too.
Oh, and Denzel Washington was pretty popular as The Equalizer.
I've never seen anybody be wrong so many times in a row.
Jackie Chan peaked with the first two Rush Hour movies which were released in his 40's.
Clint Eastwood isn't even an action star in the same vein as Arnold so not even an apt comparison. And even then, you're still wrong. He didn't hit his stride until his 40's? He starred in his most well known movies when he was in his 30's (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Fistful of Dollars and a Few Dollars More). If that isn't hitting your stride, I don't know what is.
Vin Diesel? Lmao. He's nothing outside of a few franchise movies. And he just hit 50 recently, you'll see a sharp decline now.
The Rock isn't even 50 yet so that's a failure of a comparison.
Bruce Willis has starred in flop after flop once he hit 50, probably your worst example. Nowhere near the star power he had in his younger days.
Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson can actually act, they're not dumb action stars like Arnold. They've starred in serious movies and are much more versatile.
Denzil Washington, again, can act. He's a two time Oscar winner, not comparable to Arnold with his silly catchphrases.
How does it feel to be wrong again and again? Run along now champ.
Clint Eastwood isn't even an action star in the same vein as Arnold so not even an apt comparison.
He didn't hit his stride until his 40's? He starred in his most well known movies when he was in his 30's (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Fistful of Dollars and a Few Dollars More). If that isn't hitting your stride, I don't know what is.
Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson can actually act, they're not dumb action stars like Arnold. They've starred in serious movies and are much more versatile.
Denzil Washington, again, can act. He's a two time Oscar winner, not comparable to Arnold with his silly catchphrases.
How does it feel to be wrong again and again? Run along now champ.
And he wasn't doing Dirty Harry until his 40s, which are still being copied and mimicked to this day. He was also in his 60s when he did Unforgiven!
So? Some of their biggest films were when they were in their 50s.
So? He was still in his 50s churning out blockbuster action films.
I just whipped your butt up and down the isle like a janitor cleaning up a mother's spaghetti that her toddler projectile vomited all over the grocery store floor.
Don't backtrack now buddy. You said he didn't he didn't hit his stride until his 40's which is completely false. His most well known movies (The Dollars Trilogy) were made in his 30's. You were wrong. Deal with it.
Again, Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson can act. My whole argument was that Arnold relied heavily on his physique and isn't a good actor.
Once his physical attributes started to wane, so did his career.
Arnold isn't even in the same league as Denzel. Denzel is a two time Oscar winner. He doesn't rely on his physique to sell tickets. Again, your comparisons stink.
But those aren't his most well-known movies. The Dirty Harry films are. The Sergio Leone movies are probably the most awarded films he's been in, but the Dirty Harry series is obviously the more popular films.
He was great in Maggie and Sabotage. He can definitely act.
LOL? Did you not see Mississippi Molasses or Virtuosity? Or how about the dozen or so other Denzel flicks that relied on his PHYSICAL attributes to sell tickets to women who liked the way he looked?
He relied on a DIFFERENT set of physical attributes, but a physique nonetheless. And he was still in his 50s making action films that required PHYSICAL action.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is his most well known movie today.
To say he hadn't hit his stride until his 40's is complete falsehood when it was the Dollars Trilogy that made him a huge star. But keep digging that hole.
Both massive flops. You're just a conveyor belt of dumb examples aren't you?
Lmao you're getting so desperate with these arguments i'm beginning to feel sorry for you. So to make a comparison all you need is to star in a movie that requires PHYSICAL action? Ok, we might as well start comparing Arnold to Angelina Jolie. She starred in the Tomb Raider movies which required PHYSICAL action.
I am one of the few who actually liked 6th Day, End of Days, and Collateral Damage. I will admit they would not be in my top 6 Arnold movies but I do enjoy them.
shareI like End of Days a lot, Collateral Damage is pretty good, 6th day is ok imo.
shareI also like The 6th Day
shareIt's weird, I don't really like End of Days but I'll rewatch it every time it comes on because despite its stupidity it's actually a pretty fun action flick.
Collateral Damage is an interesting but flawed film -- it didn't really know where it wanted to fall in terms of being a dramatic thriller or an action-adventure film. I think they either should have gone super realistic or super campy, but trying to tread that fine line between both made it a perfect mixture of "meh". It's definitely watchable, but it's not something I would pull out of the stack like Commando, Predator, or Total Recall for a fun-filled popcorn night.
6th Day is also interesting... it's a perfectly serviceable sci-fi flick. I think it should have been darker than what it was, but I did like that it was a bit of a sci-fi mystery thriller. I think had they tightened up a few spots related to the plot and pacing it could have been better, but it's still something of an easy watch, much like Kindergarten Cop or The Last Action Hero, but maybe just a little bit less so than the other two.
His heart problems around the mid-late nineties didn't help (and as others have mentioned, more high concept action movies came along) Once the technology behind 'Jurrasic Park' arrived....a big guy with muscles (killing people) started to lose it's lustre on the big screen.
As soon as the technology in 'The Matrix' came along (a film I despise, btw) anyone could be an action star (this period also affected the likes of Sly, Seagal, Van Damme, etc, too)
Fortunately, Stallone could *also* act, write and direct (and had legit 'franchise' pictures to fall back onto) Whereas Arnold only really had the Terminator (and subsequently most of them have to be retconned to accomodate his advancing years....much to audience disapproval)
Great points!
It's always good when you flop 2 or 3 films in a row to have a franchise to fall back on.
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Do you know why you felt that at the time?
It was just a period of time when lots of stars from the 80's were no longer hitting the zeitgeist of cultural mindsets, no matter how good their films have been on their own, the inspiring influence was no longer as strong.
I just lost interest by that pointshare
True Lies is fucking fantastic.
shareOnce a downtrend starts it's hard to stop. True, Arnie came back with True Lies after a lackluster Last Action Hero but that really was the end to his box office championship days. Yes, we had to go see Terminator 3 but it was good not great.
Honestly, I think Arnie's audience got out of their teens/early 20's and found other movies more to their liking. But yeah, mid 80's to 1991 Arnie was must see almost TWO TIMES EVERY YEAR!
Arnie doesn't really have the look, personality and acting ability to fall into other roles (a muscly guy with a strong Austrian accent) that might help prolong his career, and if you are starring in the same sort of movies or reprising similar roles, people will eventually outgrow them.
shareAction movies started to take a nosedive in the mid-to-late 90s. Look at all the big names resumes during that time: Stallone, Arnold, Van Damme, Segal - all big action guys in the 80s and early 90s. Were the movies not as good? Were people "over" the action genre? I think it might have been a little bit of both. People just stopped seeing these movies around this time period. Direct-to-video started becoming a thing - and this was before that became ok and acceptable.
Then something changed about action movies sometimes in the 2000s. They got cartoony. I mean, I know they were in the 80s, but at least they LOOKED real. The increase in the use of CGI really made the outlandish feats and stunts in these movies just look so fake and unbelievable. They were ALWAYS unbelievable, but when they started LOOKING fake, that hurt the genre.
His last truly great movie was True Lies, but I thought Eraser, End of Days, and Collateral Damage were all ok. Certainly more in the spirit of old school action movies when compared to the CGI-laden crap that would come later. Of his "newer" movies, I remember thinking Escape Plan and The Last Stand weren't half bad; though I only saw each once and it's been a while. His performance in Maggie was also really good, but the movies itself, despite being very well done, was a little flat.
Two movies about four years apart killed him off as a major star: The Last Action Hero(1993) and Batman and Robin(1997).
The Last Action Hero -- Arnold was pushing this everywhere -- somewhat tongue-in-cheek --as "the biggest movie of the summer": he actually went on one show where that phrase flashed on the screen below him as he talked. But (a) it went up against Jurassic Park and (b) it proved to be one of those particularly bad movies in which the star references himself on screen -- Arnold PLAYS Arnold in one sequence, meeting his "fictional character." Burt Reynolds killed his career roughly the same way -- we came to suspend disbelief and get into the story, not to see the star talking about BEING a star.
The next summer, Arnold got a big "save" from James Cameron with "True Lies" -- which had full-on James Bond action(at Titanic levels) and a good plot. But folks figured out -- this was more a James Cameron movie than an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.
From 1995 on, Arnold couldn't get the big directors much anymore and -- after the megaflop of Batman and Robin in 1997(which hit Arnold perhaps the hardest, career-wise) he couldn't get big budgets anymore. Also , he was REMOVED as the star of two movies that went to newly bigger stars: Planet of the Apes(Mark Wahlberg) and I Am Legend(Will Smith.)
People must have noticed -- subconsciously -- that for all his showmanship, Arnold was pushing much smaller movies after Batman and Robin -- he was going backwards into the Bs with things like Collateral Damage.
He put 2 and 2 together, did another Terminator(not at the level of the earlier ones)...and ran for Governor of California. Which gave him cover for about 6 years. Then that ended and...he's a Great Name from the Past, now.
The Last Action hero flopped because Arnold marketed it - all actors do this - and played himself?
Folks "figured out" Arnold had little to do with the success of True Lies? Did they, now? Me thinks you're projecting a bit, chief.
I will say it again, the action genre changed around this time. This was not an Arnold thing, they all struggled. He, Sly, Van Damme, Segal - they all stopped getting big roles for years.
The Last Action hero flopped because Arnold marketed it - all actors do this - and played himself?
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I doubt that I can convince you to change your mind, but I should clarify what I meant here(and elsewhere, as below.)
Part of the fun of the "Arnold career" was his sense of showmanship -- borderline con-man stuff -- in which he pretty much declared that he was going to be a major star and then invited his fans to come along on the journey.
The Terminator proved a classic, but it was a "B" on release , and Arnold toiled in hit "Bs" for awhile in the 80s -- Commando(which everybody loved for its mindless violence; I saw it several times for fun); Raw Deal; probably even The Running Man.
Predator seemed to raise Arnold a level -- it was a big hit, the director went on to do Die Hard, it mixed Alien-style SciFi with action.
In 1988 Arnold made his big move: to comedy in Twins. In 1990, Arnold "split" his year between big budget action(Total Recall) and comedy(Kindergarten Cop -- which nonetheless climaxed with a bloody shootout.)
In 1991, T2 was a TRUE summer blockbuster -- James Cameron at the helm, the biggest of Arnold's career, and superstardom arrived.
I DO think that Arnold made "The Last Action Hero" with two big a head on him. He DOES appear in the movie as himself and it DOES take us right out of the movie. But the movie wasn't that good anyway (remember the part about the corpse of the farting Mafia man?) and the danger for Arnold was promoting it like he had another T2. Jurassic Park easily bested it -- even as The Last Action Hero had been promoted as the OTHER big movie of the summer.
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CONT
Folks "figured out" Arnold had little to do with the success of True Lies? Did they, now? Me thinks you're projecting a bit, chief.
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Not really. I got that from some trade paper stories in the couple of years AFTER True Lies. Hollywood studio bosses started to turn on Arnold -- it was as if he had "hit his limit" as an actor and it was clear that James Cameron had directed his three greatest movies.
Look at the movies AFTER True Lies -- Eraser, Junior(an attempt to do Twins again with Danny DeVito, that failed), Jingle All the Way(another attempt at being a "comedy star" and it didn't work.)
By the time he headlined Batman and Robin, Arnold was already looking fairly weak without Cameron. And though he clearly had star charisma still, he had so many silly lines that he seemed to be the main beneficiary of "career loss" after that movie. It took out Uma Thurman(pre Kill Bill), Alicia Silverstone, and Chris O'Connell, too. Only Clooney seemed to sneak away unscathed.
The Last Action Hero and Batman and Robin were not "Bs" like Commando and Raw Deal. Big money was lost and Arnold was eventually removed from Planet of the Apes and I Am Legend. The movies after Batman were lesser budgeted affairs -- but Arnold still keep selling them like he was a big star. And then he sold himself as a Governor.
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CONT
I will say it again, the action genre changed around this time. This was not an Arnold thing, they all struggled. He, Sly, Van Damme, Segal - they all stopped getting big roles for years.
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For the most part...agreed. Stallone interestingly enough had had a "prestige launch" with the original Rocky --Best Picture Oscar, Best Actor AND Screenplay noms for Sly -- he had more clout than Van Damme and Segal. Arnold TRIED to bust loose from action -- mainly with comedy. I recall some trade press guys noting that one problem as Arnold tried to go higher in Hollywood was that he really couldn't act, whereas action men like Willis, Ford, and Gibson could. Gibson had proved himself in Year of LIving Dangerously, The Bounty, The River...Ford in Witness and Working Girl and Regarding Henry...Willis in Pulp Fiction and The Sixth Sense.
But Arnold turned out to be more of a Van Damme or a Segal, so I guess you can say he DID go down with them.
But he had bigger stardom for a time than Van Damme or Segal. The Last Action Hero and Batman and Robin reflected that power.
By the way, I don't really agree with the wags who said Arnold couldn't act, and its been pleasureable watching him in his old age showing up on screen and projecting the rather "instant charisma" of the true star he was (he's the most charismatic of his Planet Hollywood pals Willis and Sly, as proved in the first Expendables.) I think , rather like Burt Reynolds, Arnold sacrificed true star acting charisma to bad movies.