http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/1208-arnold-to-play-the-terminator-once-againSylvester Stallone spent nearly a decade making straight-to-DVD dreck like "Shade" and "D-Tox" before finally acquiescing to his fans and playing, once again, his two most iconic characters, Rocky and Rambo. Arnold Schwarzenegger spent nearly a decade trying to fix the decrepit state of California, which might have even been worse than "Avenging Angelo." Now that he is returning to acting, it looks like he's gonna go the Stallone route.
Deadline reported last night that the long-awaited comeback project for Schwarzenegger will be ... "The Terminator," again. Arnold's agents are out shopping a package that involve Ah-nold teaming with "Fast Five" director Justin Lin to bring the T-800 back to the big screen. They don't have a script, they don't have a target date and they don't even have a firm grasp on who owns the Terminator franchise ... but they have Arnold willing to play the part again. That's enough.
Schwarzenegger had been eyeing several comeback roles after his years as governor, including, intriguingly, "Last Stand" for director Kim Ji-Woon. But considering how long it has been since he was a top-of-the-line movie star, and how much the industry has changed since then, he appears to have decided to return with a safer bet.
The legitimate question arises: Uh, isn't Schwarzenegger, who will be 64 this summer, a little old to be playing the Terminator? Stallone is a year older, but Rocky and Rambo are live human beings who age; the Terminator is a robot who, presumably, wouldn't be modeled after an elderly person. As IFC's Matt Singer points out, Schwarzenegger looked a little old to be playing the Terminator when he last did eight yars ago; how can he possibly be a bionic kililng machine today?
If he wanted to go the Jeff Bridges in "Tron" route, well, that seems like a lot of work just to make a lead actor look younger than he really is, and besides ... in 2009's "Terminator: Salvation," they sorta tried this. Remember, Arnold's face and body (or at least his 1985 body) showed up in that too.
It might be difficult to put up with a whole movie of that sort of uncanny valley CGI, and it's strange to think that the major special effect in an action movie would be to nip and tuck the lead actor's body ... but even that film, a reboot of the whole franchise, recognized that the only true Terminator was Arnold. He seems to realize that now as well.
