Arnold Schwarzenegger: I'll be back on the big screen

Cinemimi[Satureday January 22,2011]
Former governor of California considering three Hollywood scripts, one of which could see him playing a German soldier

Hollywood homecoming ... former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger is considering a return to the movies. Photograph: Dr Billy Ingram/WireImage

Arnold Schwarzenegger has identified three screenplays that may form the basis of his return to the movie industry after serving seven years as governor of California.


Interviewed in Austrian newspaper the Krone, Schwarzenegger said a return to movies was inevitable, but added that he was waiting for the right script and director.


"I'm reading three scripts," he said. "One topic/script, which I considered a long time ago before governor, is delighting me particularly. I would play an older [German] soldier, who gets the order at the end of the war to kill a bunch of kids. But he doesn't do it and gets them to safety at the risk of his life. It has all kinds of adventure. The script is based on a true story."


The screenplay described by Schwarzenegger sounds like With Wings As Eagles, by Braveheart writer Randall Wallace, and is based on Ostermann's War by James J Cullen. Schwarzenegger became attached to the project in 1996, when second world war films were all the rage with studios – Saving Private Ryan was made during the same period and hit cinemas in 1998.


With Wings As Eagles is the story of a German colonel ordered by the SS to kill thousands of American prisoners of war in the final days of the war. He refuses – and fights against his former comrades. Wallace's screenplay was written with Schwarzenegger in mind, and describes Ostermann as a man with "a muscular body of physical power". The full screenplay can be read online here.



In the Krone interview, Schwarzenegger cites Clint Eastwood as an example of a former action star with a productive late-period acting career, hinting that he will choose smaller films with lower budgets on his return to Hollywood. "Throwing myself around the room and shooting people is no longer in there," he says. "[But] I'm like a sponge that soaks up knowledge and is constantly willing to learn new things."


Schwarzenegger also told the Krone that taking the California job cost him as much as $200m in savings and lost earnings. He said he did not regret taking on the role, however. He also talked about his intention to become an international advocate for environmental reform.