Sharon Stone’s ‘Basic Instinct’ Director Dashed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Chance at Oscars With His Furious Temper That Left The Austrian Oak Devastated
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Verhoeven worked together on just one film, 1990’s Total Recall, a science fiction action film with a screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, and Gary Goldman. Michael Ironside, Sharon Stone, Rachel Ticotin, Ronny Cox, and Arnold Schwarzenegger all appear in the film.
The movie, which is based on the 1966 short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick, was eagerly anticipated and immediately rose to the fifth spot on the list of highest-grossing movies of the year. Then why didn’t Paul Verhoeven and Arnold Schwarzenegger collaborate again?
Arnold Schwarzenegger was set to feature in Paul Verhoeven’s Crusade
During an interview with Empire, Arnold Schwarzenegger shared that after the success of his and Paul Verhoeven’s pairing in Total Recall, which was one of the highly awaited movies at the time, he was set to be a part of Crusade but then he wasn’t. He explained;
“It was all written and ready to go but then Paul started going crazy. We had the final meeting with the studio and we were all sitting at this boardroom table. They said, ‘So the budget is $100 million. That’s a lot of money. What kind of guarantees do you have that we will get it for 100 and it won’t go up to 130?’”
Schwarzenegger remembered that the director had used the opportunity inopportune time to protect his artistic rights by saying that there is no such thing as guarantees noting that he said it’s ludicrous and even though Schwarzenegger kicked him under the table asking him to stop, the director kept on going.
The actor explained,
“That was the end of that movie. Paul always tried to be honest, but you can be a little bit selective about when to be honest and when to just move on with the project. It was a shame.”
The project was later shifted to director Robert Englund.
Robert Englund regrets not working with Arnold Schwarzenegger on Crusade
Robert Englund, who is famously known for the iconic portrayal of Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street, replaced Paul Verhoeven as the director of the movie, which never saw the light of the day as it never made it to the big screen. Arnold Schwarzenegger was not part of the movie, but the director regrets not working with the actor. He said,
“I worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the middle of the 70s. At the height of his stardom, he was supposed to make a movie called Crusade for Paul Verhoeven…Paul was also at the top of his game and it was perhaps going to be the biggest movie ever made”.
He continued,
“My contract began with six months in Spain and I was to play the balding monk that carries his weapons for him…I was really looking forward to that, six months in Spain with Arnold, doing a medieval project. But they never got the financing, it was just too expensive”.
Hence, the movie never saw the sunlight and was eventually axed, which according to the cast and crew, could have been a brilliant movie if the script and the budget were right.
Arnold Schwarzenegger on Terminator sequel movies
During the interview with Empire, the actor was asked if there is a room where the audience can see Schwarzenegger’s Terminator in a post-McG world, to which the actor noted,
“I think (producer) Megan Ellison owns the rights to Terminator 16, or whatever it is. They have been trying to put a script together but I’ve not seen it, so I’ve no idea. There’s nothing on the drawing board at this point. Nothing on the plan.”
The actor lastly added that they eventually perform for the people and, during an interview with people, he clarified that now with AI, the movie is reality and no longer fiction. He said,
“Today, everyone is frightened of it, of where this is gonna go. And in this movie, in ‘Terminator,’ we talk about the machines becoming self-aware and they taking over… Now, over the course of decades, it has become a reality. So it’s not any more fantasy or kind of futuristic. It is here today. And so this is the extraordinary writing of Jim Cameron.”
The actor appreciated the director, stating that he had been just an extraordinary writer and such an unbelievable director, noting that if he could, he would have taken the credit for it.
Source: Empire
