Despite delivering cult classics like The Terminator, the Hollywood career of Arnold Schwarzenegger has been far from perfect. While he has his own collection of flop movies, Last Action Hero stands out from the rest due to the impact it had on him.

Schwarzenegger hasn't shied away from accepting how the failure of Last Action Hero affected him negatively. He discussed the issue during his appearance on a 2015 episode of The Howard Stern Show. Despite denying Stern's comments about going into a depression following the failure, Schwarzenegger accepted that it had left him frustrated.

"Maybe that happens to some people. I was not ashamed. I was simply p***** off," said Schwarznegger.

The timing of Last Action Hero's release, unfortunately, became the biggest reason behind the movie's failure. After noting the success of Schwarzenegger's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the team of Last Action Hero decided to pit it against Steven Spielberg's iconic project, Jurassic Park.

The dinosaur-based sci-fi movie was at the height of its frenzy when John McTiernan and Co. decided to release Last Action Hero on June 18, 1993. It turned out to be a profitable venture, making $137 million worldwide against its $85 million budget. But the numbers were far inferior to what the team of Last Action Hero expected.

However, amid the aforementioned episode of The Howard Stern Show, Schwarzenegger mentioned that he somewhat predicted that the movie would fail to meet expectations.

"We see the numbers ahead of time. We see the tracking. What is the first choice? What's the awareness, and all those kinds of stuff," he said. "I studied those numbers. I'm a numbers guy. And so, I knew right away that we're going to have a problem with the opening and we're going to have a problem at the end."

But while Schwarzenegger mentioned that he was just frustrated with the movie's failure on Stern's show, his Netflix documentary, Arnold, revealed a lot more about the state of his mind.

Was Arnold Schwarzenegger more than just frustrated with Last Action Hero's failure?

During his appearance on the aforementioned episode of Stern's show, Schwarzenegger denied feeling anything else apart from being frustrated.

But the Predator actor's documentary, Arnold, displayed a completely different side of how he reacted to Last Action Hero's underwhelming performance. After listening to what he said, many might feel that Stern's remarks about Schwarzenegger getting somewhat depressed are close enough to the reality.

"I cannot tell you how upset I was. It hurts you. It hurts your feelings. It’s embarrassing… I didn’t want to see anyone for a week," Schwarzenegger described his condition. "But you keep plodding along. And my mother-in-law also said this: ‘Let’s just move forward.’ It’s a great message."

Well, with such contradictory statements coming from Schwarzenegger himself, it's tough to document his exact mental state after Last Action Hero's failure, unless one has watched him go through that phase.

So, which revelation from Schwarzenegger do you think is closer to the actual state of mind he was in after Last Action Hero's underwhelming performance? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Souvik Roy

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi