Despite his status as one of the most iconic action heroes of all-time, Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t appeared in anywhere near as many sequels as you might think, with his recurring role in the Terminator franchise and glorified cameos in The Expendables marking the only time he’s reprised any part in a major capacity.
Compare that to his rival-turned-BFF Sylvester Stallone – somebody who’s literally starred in dozens of follow-ups throughout his career – and it’s easy to see why Arnold believed himself to be the superior of the two by sheer virtue of mixing it up more often. However, in an interview with ScreenRant, the former Governor of California basically came clean and admitted his incoming Netflix series FUBAR was basically a direct spiritual successor to True Lies.
“Well, I think it was just such a brilliant idea to do something, kind of a concept that comes from a very, very successful movie. True Lies was one of the biggest hits of the year directed by Jim Cameron and written by him. And so when David Ellison came to me with that idea to do a kind of action comedy like True Lies, but to do a whole eight episodes I was very, very excited about that and went all out and did it.
It was very fortunate also to have a really great cast because this is the most important thing, because you alone never can really carry a show like that or do the acting yourself. So I really had a brilliant, brilliant cast and Monica was excellent, and we really worked well together. So I was very excited about doing that.”
James Cameron’s classic 1994 blockbuster was subjected to sequel talk for decades, but it sadly never came to pass. Instead, we ended up getting a disastrous small screen reboot that premiered earlier this year, found itself savaged by critics, and ended up being axed before its first season had even finished airing.
Maybe a hypothetical reunion of Schwarzenegger, Cameron, and Jamie Lee Curtis would have failed to recapture the magic, but that doesn’t mean fans can’t rue it as the one that got away. FUBAR does star the Austrian Oak and Monica Barbaro as a father/daughter duo who have no idea the other one is a secret agent, though, so maybe it’ll prove to be a worthy continuation from a thematic point of view.