10 Movie Characters WWE Should Base New Gimmicks On

Professional wrestling has long been influenced by pop culture. Wrestler's theme songs often incorporate popular music, storylines frequently resemble traditional television narratives (but with more elbow drops), and most obviously, gimmicks repeatedly borrow elements from iconic movie characters.

They've repackaged characters from movies like The Crow, Halloween, Scarface, Cape Fear, Mad Max, and more superhero movies than you can shake a ring post at.

And you have to give them credit, because their success rate with "refurbishing" these characters has actually been pretty high. Sure, it would be nice if Vince McMahon and his creative team were able to come up with high-concept, original gimmicks on their own instead of having to raid the cinema for ideas, but if the character works, who really cares?

Obviously, in order for these to work within the confines of sports entertainment, they have to be tailored to fit that environment. You can't just stuff a guy into a Jack Sparrow costume, have him swashbuckle his way around the ring, and hope that everyone still likes Pirates of the Caribbean enough to forgive how ludicrous the idea of a pirate wrestler is.

Though outright gimmicks aren't as popular as they used to be, the following movie characters could still be used as templates to mold a wrestler's onscreen persona around.

Although millions of Big Lebowski fans' heads would literally explode if WWE were to base one of their characters on Jeff Bridges' iconic turn as "The Dude", the notion of a new-age, rug-obsessed pacifist wouldn't really play out too well inside the squared circle. But there's another character in Lebowski lore that would fit perfectly inside the WWE Universe: The Jesus.

He's a suave, salacious, sociopathic bowling maestro in a purple jumpsuit who speaks with an outrageous Cuban accent. He's already a pretty eccentric caricature, so if anything, would need to tone down some of his wilder aspects to make him more palatable for the long run.

But hey, can you imagine the kinds of back-and-forth promos a Jesus-type character and The Rock could have together, bantering in the 3rd-person the whole way through? That's magic in a bottle. Bonus points if theme composers Jim Johnston or CFO$ could put a flamenco spin on a popular classic rock song, much like the Gipsy Kings did for "Hotel California", which was used during Jesus' iconic introduction.

Also, not for nothing, there's a spin-off of The Big Lebowski called Going Places starring John Turturro that supposedly centers on The Jesus, so now would be a good time to strike while the iron's hot.