The action movie flop that made Arnold Schwarzenegger break down in tears

When Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were competing at the box office to become the biggest action stars on the planet, I was always Team Arnie. Not only were his films great, they were also more fun to watch. Even as a kid, I had the feeling that Sly took himself a little too seriously, while Austrian Oak was more sarcastic, seeming to realize how ridiculous his big, silly flicks were. Playing the Terminator in his star-making role has also informed his human characters. Most of the time, they weren’t emotional or angry, just content with their job of blowing things up and killing bad guys. But no one is invincible, however, and one of Arnie’s biggest failures brought the man himself to tears.

Released in June 1993, “Last Action Hero” was set to cement Schwarzenegger’s box office dominance over his powerful rival. He and Stallone would match up with each other during the 1980s: Sly had huge successes with his “Rambo” and “Rocky” franchises, while Arnie drew on the influence of “The Terminator” with the likes of “Commando,” “Predator” and He successfully branched out into comedy with the movie “Twins.” By the early 1990s, Schwarzenegger had staked his claim as Hollywood’s biggest action star, scoring two massive hits in “Total Recall” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” while Stallone was making a fool of himself in “Oscar” and “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.”

Like Rocky Balboa, you can still count out Stallone, and he came back in 1993 with the double whammy of “Cliffhanger” and “Demolition Man.” However, Schwarzenegger was at the peak of his popularity, and “Last Action Hero” also benefited from John McTiernan (“Predator,” “Die Hard”) calling the shots and Shane Black (“Lethal Weapon,” “The Last Boy Scout”) on scriptwriting duty. Unfortunately, the misleading parody became one of the most iconic bombs of the ’90s.

‘Last Action Hero’ sees Arnold Schwarzenegger send his character to the screen by playing Jack Slater, the maverick cop at the heart of the fictional Jack Slater film series. His biggest fan is 10-year-old Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien), a kid from a broken home who escapes his bleak reality in Slater’s larger-than-life adventures. He can’t wait for the sequel and gets closer to the action than he expected when the showrunner (Robert Prosky) at his local house gives him a magic ticket that transports him to the movie.

Danny finds himself in Slater’s world, accompanying him on his hero’s latest case to bring down gangster Tony Vivaldi (Anthony Quinn) and his sniper henchman Mr. Benedict (Charles Dance), a cold-blooded killer with a fancy glass eye for every occasion. Naturally, the event turns into reality after the ticket falls into Benedict’s hands. As Jack copes with the revelation that he’s a made-up character, Benedict hatches a plan to take over the world with an army of cinematic villains — not the least of which is the Serial Killer (Tom Noonan), the serial killer who killed Slater’s son in a previous film.

Although Schwarzenegger seems too big to fail after Terminator 2, “Last Action Hero” is set to become another massive hit. But things didn’t go as planned. There were writing problems from day one, with Shane Black, David Arnott and several script doctors having to tone down the adult-oriented script. Additionally, the already massive budget was inflated by Schwarzenegger’s massive $15 million pay check, and after disastrous test screenings that led to the ending being hastily reshot, Sony poured even more money into an extravagant marketing campaign that plastered the film’s logo onto the side of a NASA rocket. However, the behind-the-scenes chaos wasn’t the biggest threat to the film’s success.

“Last Action Hero” might have been a success if its producers hadn’t set a release date of June 1993, a date that saw the film competing with “Jurassic Park.” Even Schwarzenegger was no match for the T. rex, and Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster dominated the box office, leaving Last Action Hero in the dust. Ultimately, it grossed $137 million in theaters against an $85 million budget, but the additional millions spent on marketing meant Sony lost money.

This was the first major failure of Schwarzenegger’s career, and he took it personally. In the Netflix documentary “Arnold,” he admitted:

“I can’t tell you how upset I am (…) It hurts you. It hurts your feelings. It’s embarrassing. … I didn’t want to see anyone for a week. But you keep working. My mother-in-law also used to say this all the time: ‘Let’s move on.’ It’s a great message.”

James Cameron, who had directed Arnold in two “Terminator” films at the time, recalls checking up on him:

“It looked like he was in bed crying (…) He took it as a huge blow to his brand. I think it really shocked him. … I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ “I’m going to hang out by myself,” he said. (…} That’s the only time I heard him fall.”

Schwarzenegger bounced back the following year thanks to Cameron’s “True Lies.” After the costly “Last Action Hero” debacle, he probably had some anxiety about it Film price (it was the first film with a budget of more than $100 million)But the spending paid off at the box office. Still, there was no escaping the feeling that “Last Action Hero” was the beginning of the end for Arnie’s heyday in Hollywood and the kind of edgy film that satirized him.