Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to acting, perhaps with these projects
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He’ll be back: Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sent out a Twitter message Thursday saying he’s ready to start acting again (no jokes about his performance in Sacramento, please). ‘Exciting news,” Schwarzenegger tweeted. “My friends at CAA have been asking me for 7 years when they can take offers seriously. Gave them the green light today.” His camp isn’t saying what roles he might be considering.
But given how obsessed Hollywood is with sequels, remakes and comic-book and board game adaptations, we have to assume some of the following roles might be on the table:
“The King’s Speech II”: The newly elected president of Austria (Schwarzenegger) is forced to appear on television to calm the nation after a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, he’s forgotten how to speak German, and the populace can’t understand his heavily accented English. The president’s wife (Jennifer Aniston) summons an unorthodox speech therapist (comedian Gilbert Gottfried) to perform some Henry Higgins magic.
“The Lifter”: Based on parts of “The Wrestler” and “The Fighter,” an over-the-hill weightlifter (Schwarzenegger) has one more chance at redemption and sets his sights on an Olympic gold medal. He can still manage the snatch, but the clean-and-jerk proves elusive until the lifter’s mother (Melissa Leo, wearing a latex mask to make her look older) and his daughter (Marisa Tomei) travel to London to cheer him on.
“Scrabble”: Adapted from the popular board game, the movie unfolds in a futuristic world in which only contestants who can play all seven tiles from a letter rack that holds STOHREE (there is at least one winning word!) are allowed to live past age 65. One man (Schwarzenegger) approaching that fatal age attempts to change the rules through a ballot initiative only to have the winning proposition overturned by a group of activist judges (secretly controlled by the computers in “The Matrix”).
“The Man With the Dragon Tattoo”: Based on the recently discovered fourth book in novelist Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (Quartet?), this crime thriller follows a magazine writer (Daniel Craig), a bisexual computer hacker (Rooney Mara) and a heavily tattooed chess wizard (Schwarzenegger) whose rook might contain miniature negatives of incriminating photographs of a corrupt elected official (Eliot Spitzer). If the trio doesn’t succeed using the Ruy Lopez opening to beat a Russian grandmaster, the rook—and the crooked official—may slip out of their reach.
— John Horn