Arnold Schwarzenegger Almost Starred in a Wrestling Body Horror Movie

It was 1987 and Arnold Schwarzenegger had just starred in “Predator” by John McTiernan a film about violent mercenaries hunted by a vicious creature from outer space. That same year, horror luminary Stuart Gordon, already well-known to horror fans for “Re-Animator” and “From Beyond,” just completed his third feature, the killer toy movie “Dolls.” And, in a parallel universe, they both could have moved on to a notable horror project together soon after.

In 2016, horror filmmaker Joe Begos was interviewed on the podcast “Shockwaves“, and Begos recalls his days working as a screenwriter for Stuart Gordon, in the late 1980s, and the various projects that passed through Gordon’s offices. It seemed that Schwarzenegger really wanted to work with Gordon after seeing “Re-Animator” in 1985. There was even a brief period when Schwarzenegger was interested in playing the lead role in Gordon’s sci-fi film “Fortress”, released in 1992. Christopher Lambert ended up taking the lead in “Fortress,” but that sounds a lot like something Schwarzenegger would have done back in the day Pairing Schwarzenegger with Stuart Gordon isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

But it seems that Gordon and Schwarzenegger were revolving around a twisted horror movie about a bodybuilder called “Steroid.” The premise was quite far-fetched: a professional wrestler, obsessed with his physique, starts taking steroids to build muscle. However, there is something wrong with the drugs and the wrestler is going crazy from the chemicals. Obviously, the film had to end with Arnold Schwarzenegger, transformed into a monster, murdering a group of people in the streets of New York. Unfortunately, the film was never made.

Begos noted that in the late 1980s, “Steroid” seemed plausible and even gave the impression that it was about to move forward. In his words:

“They were supposed to make this awesome movie together called ‘Steroid.’ […] I was working for Stuart when this whole Chris Benoit thing happened, and we talked about how shocking it was. And he told me he was supposed to do a story like that in the ’80s with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He flipped through his binder and pulled out a script called “Steroid.” It says that Schwarzenegger plays a wrestler addicted to steroids, and eventually goes crazy and goes on a killing spree across New York City. And I’m thinking shit!”

Chris Benoit, for those unfamiliar with the story, was a professional wrestler who, in 2007, murdered his wife Nancy and seven-year-old son Daniel. He then hanged himself. The details of the affair are perhaps too gruesome to be described casually here (there is an episode of “Dark Side of the Ring” dedicated to him), but it was postulated that a lifetime of being punched in the head in the wrestling ring, coupled with incessant steroid use, had placed Benoit in an unstable headspace. And to think that Stuart Gorton had written a screenplay about a similar phenomenon 20 years earlier. The “steroid” would have been produced by Full Moon entertainment mogul Charles Bandand released under the title “Berserker” (not to be confused with Jefferson Richard’s 1987 horror film of the same name).

Unfortunately, this is where the project seems to have stopped. No further moves were made, and Schwarzenegger and Gordon moved on. The two never actually worked together.

Why did “Steroid”https://www.slashfilm.com/“Berserker” flop? It seems that at this point in his career, Arnold only wanted to play heroes and good guys. He frequently played heroes who violently killed their enemies, but he only played a true villain in James Cameron’s “The Terminator” in 1984. The idea of ​​playing a drugged murderer, it seemed, was more than the actor could bear. All this was according to a report in ScreenRant. Gordon obviously tried to convince Schwarzenegger that his character would have a heroic side, but Schwarzenegger conveyed it anyway.

Indeed, Schwarzenegger hasn’t appeared in too many horror films throughout his career. Although there were horror elements in his films “The Terminator”, “Predator” and even “Conan the Barbarian”, Schwarzenegger would not appear in a true horror film until “End of Times” from 1999 a satanic thriller that no one likes. He would later appear in a tragic zombie drama called “Maggie” in 2015, but that was it for Arnold and horror. Gordon, on the other hand, has directed primarily genre films throughout his career, although his later films were crime films and thrillers. His last film, released in 2007, was called “Stuck” and was about a homeless man stuck in the windshield of a young woman’s car. She doesn’t try to take it off and it lives in her garage for a long time.

Gordon died in 2020 at the age of 72. Schwarzenegger, 78, still performs occasionally, but his production has declined in recent years.