After a speculative report a few days ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s long-heralded return to Hollywood will be in The Lincoln Lawyer director Brad Furman‘s Cry Macho. [THR]
Cry Macho has for years been a pet project of Al Ruddy, Oscar-winning producer of The Godfather. Based on a novel by N. Richard Nash, Cry Macho is the story of a down-on-his-luck horse trainer who is hired to kidnap a 9-year-old boy, only to run into a snarl of problems when it becomes clear the boy’s mother doesn’t want him back. The two apparently bond, A Perfect World-style. Originally developed with a stream of different leads in mind, such as Burt Lancaster, Clint Eastwood and Pierce Brosnan, “some action elements have been added to accommodate the star.” Clearly.
Even more interesting is Schwarzenegger’s deal: his $20 million-per-picture fee is down to $12 million, but he’s getting 25% of the first-dollar gross for this film, a sign that Ruddy is pretty confident the 63-year-old star (was he really California’s governor once? Seems like so long ago) will bring his old crowd back to the theater:
“If it works, and I think it will,” [Ruddy] says, “this could be a classic. There’s an emotional line to the story that really works. At the end of the movie, I’m hoping audiences will be laughing and crying at the same time.”
Brad Furman, whose well-received The Lincoln Lawyer might just be a major selling point of Ruddy’s package, is set to begin shooting this fall. This timeline throws Schwarzenegger’s involvement with Ji-Woon Kim‘s The Last Stand and Antoine Fuqua‘s The Tomb up in the air, not to mention the widely-whispered The Expendables II.
What do you think of Arnold’s return? Are you questioning the project choice or whether or not he has any remaining relevance?