He'll be back: ex-governor returns to what he knows

Interesting movie news. Arnold Schwarzenegger, having wrapped up his term as governor of California and pretty much completed the bankrupting of the state, will be taking time out from impregnating the payroll to return to the day job: making movies. The film is to be called The Last Stand. Make of that what you will.

The Last Stand is being developed by Lionsgate. They have called in Korean director Kim Jee-Woon, whose films A Tale of Two Sisters and The Good, The Bad, The Weird will no doubt be not familiar, to oversee a story which was, and one quotes, “based on a spec script by Andrew Knauer that was subsequently rewritten by Jeffrey Nachmanoff”. Or in street parlance, a dog’s dinner. The film has “pre-sold well in several overseas territories already”. That would be overseas territories such as South Korea.

Whether American audiences will be prepared to accept Schwarzenegger as a do-gooding action hero ever again remains to be seen. His cameo in The Expendables doesn't quite work as a barometer, in that it wasn't a lead role and it happened before all the really bad headlines. He plays a sheriff in a border town who was forced to leave “his LAPD post following a bungled operation that left him wracked with failure and defeat after his partner was crippled”. We can probably take all that as code. Anyway, a shot at redemption is at hand in the form of a big-shot druglord who is bearing down on Arnie’s bit of the border in a very fast car. Will Arnie, can Arnie? Has he still got the chops? Has his tiny police outfit been underfunded to buggery by a gubernatorial incompetence? All will be revealed. Oh hang on, it's been revealed already by none other than Joe Drake, who happens to be President of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger will bring incredible magnetism to this complex but classic role,” the president assures us. "Arnie’s character," he advises, “grapples with some really tough stuff, but ultimately triumphs, and we knew he’d truly elevate this high-octane ride.” Thanks for the spoiler. Do we still have to go and see the film? Come to that, do they still have to make it?

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