20 Awesome Facts About Arnold Schwarzenegger
From his humble beginnings as an Austrian bodybuilder to one of the biggest action movie stars in history.
Published 6 years ago in Wow
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We wouldn’t have witnessed his career defining role in Jingle All The Way if not for delays in production of a Planet Of The Apes. Director Chris Columbus had submitted a script with Arnie attached, but the movie studio rejected it and Columbus and Schwarzenegger left the project. This allowed Arnold to make the beloved Christmas classic and for Tim Burton to eventually make the Planet of the Apes reboot we all really wanted.
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In what must be considered one of the best paydays of his career, The Governator was paid $29.25 million for his role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. This included budget allocations to provide him with limos, private jets, bodyguards and luxury hotel suites throughout production. Oh, and he casually received 20% of the gross receipts from ticket sales, DVDs, TV rights, game licensing, and in-flight movie licensing on the movie worldwide.
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Saturday Night Fever owes its existence to Pumping Iron. Screenwriter Nik Cohn watched the documentary and was captivated by Schwarzenegger’s rival Lou Ferrigno. The scenes of the Ferrignos arguing over the dinner table inspired Cohn to write “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” which was turned into Saturday Night Fever.
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Jackie Kennedy played a part, inadvertently, in the promotion of Pumping Iron. At a press luncheon for the film in New York, with attendees including Andy Warhol and George Plimpton, the former first lady appeared as a favor to a mutual friend of hers and Schwarzenegger. The press went crazy and Arnie would later admit it gave the film a massive publicity boost.
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Pumping Iron, the documentary film that exposed ‘The Arnold’ to the masses, was almost torpedoed mid-production. And it would have been Schwarzenegger’s fault. Co-director George Butler’s attempt to get the film made on a tight budget led him to approach a film development lab with the caveat that he couldn’t actually pay for them for their input up front. At first receptive, an employee at the company soured on the idea when he heard Schwarzenegger was involved. As the agitated technician explained, “I won’t give you any credit,” he said. “I had a movie in here … Hercules in New York (Schwarzenegger’s first film role) and they never paid a bill and they owe me thirty grand.”
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Arnie was supposed to play John McClane in Die Hard. Sort of. Die Hard was envisioned as a sequel to 1985’s Commando, with Schwarzenegger reprising his role as the wonderfully named John Matrix. After the disappointing box office return of the Conan sequel (Conan the Destroyer), Arnie dropped out and the script was rewritten as a stand alone film. Yippee ki-yay!
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Total Recall took forever to make. Two scriptwriters started the original screenplay all the way back in 1976 (14 years before the final film would be released), yet ran into issues in re-imagining Phillip K. Dick’s short story. They took a break, casually wrote Alien, and rewrote the script 40 times before Arnie had a chance to do some seriously eye-popping acting.
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