Remember Last Action Hero , Arnold Schwarzenegger ’s 1993 heavily meta natural action comedy with a frenetic , Shane Black sensitivity to it ? Though it ’s turn over fad position in the twelvemonth since , it did n’t do too hot upon initial discharge . And over twenty old age later , its star has a hypothesis about why .
It ’s quite a theory . The action mechanism star and one - time Republican regulator of California , talking to Business Insider , had this to say about the photographic film ’s loser :
It was one of those things where President Clinton was elected and the mechanical press somehow made the whole affair kind of political where they thought , ‘ Okay , the ‘ 80s activity guys are gone here ’s a perfect model , ’ and they wrote this narrative before anyone saw the movie
“ The action hero epoch is over , Bill Clinton is in , the highbrow movies are the ‘ in ’ thing now , I could n’t recover , ” he go forward .
On the one hand , he is n’t totally incorrect . conflate the high - octane action films that were Arnie ’s elementary money makers with the Reagan era of American bombast is eminently reasonable . And sure as shooting , 1993 was in the waning years of that sorting of film — that type of big - budget natural action blockbusters does n’t exist any longer , really . They ’re either superhero films or they demand some other form of hook to them ( or they ’re mid - budget Liam Neeson thrillers ) .
But Schwarzenegger ’s ethnic depth psychology does n’t quite stack up . If anything , Last Action Hero is the perfect Clintonian action movie . Its postmodern , meta - filmic sensibility , which has its superstar play a fictionalized version of himself in a magic world where action mechanism movies are real , fits right in footstep with a political climate that ’s rethinking sure ideas about American machismo . Last Action Hero is all about the action genius as a character of execution , both a fun fiction and a prank we ’re all in on . Rather than go against those Clinton - era changes in pop culture , it augur them nicely .
There ’s another , very good reason Last Action Hero was a bust at the box office . While the movie come out about six months into the Clinton presidentship , it also descend out one week after Jurassic Park .
Jurassic Park . One of the most successful and beloved smash hit of all time . I ’m sorry , but Jack Slater never stood a chance .
[ Business Insider ]
Bill Clinton
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