Just a few days ago the world was marveling at the out-of-touch lunacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stan Lee’s multi-medium brain abortion, The Governator (which I think would be kinda cute if it was merely a Saturday morning cartoon and nothing else). Well, now /Film has confirmed some interesting news about another Arnold project.
We’ve all been wondering what Arnold’s first starring role was going to be (only fools ever believed he might not return to Hollywood), and the actor himself has been tossing out and hinting at a whole slew of possibilities. /Film says they have confirmed with a close production source that Arnie is in the process of locking a deal with Lion’s Gate to star in The Last Stand, which will be the English-language debut of Kim Ji-Woon (I Saw The Devil). The film – which was previously to star Liam Neeson – is about a lone border sheriff tasked with stopping an escaped drug dealer from crossing into Mexico in a super car (a Gumpert Apollo, according to FirstShowing).
Kim describes the film as such: “My concept for The Last Stand is that it’s kind of a combination of Die Hard and High Noon where (the latter) was about protecting something very important that needs to be protected, while Die Hard is a very drawn-out, long process that almost kills someone in the process, so my film will be something that has to be very well protected and in the process, we almost die protecting it in a way. So if I Saw the Devil was about a person’s extreme remorse about having lost something that they couldn’t protect, The Last Stand would be where someone puts their lives on the line to protect something that’s very important and it will be a bit more optimistic film in that regard.”
Arnold has not officially signed onto the film, but /Film seems to think it is a forgone conclusion. Teaming up with a director like Kim would be a very savvy move for Arnold, so hopefully he’ll go through with it. At his age he should definitely be looking at Liam Neeson and his new found career as a middle-aged action star. So there is certainly no shame in picking up Neeson’s leftovers.