6. Arnold Schwarzenegger - Crusades
Following the success of subversive sci-fi blockbuster Total Recall, Dutch helmer Paul Verhoeven looked towards the swords and sandals genre as his next assault on the box office. Working from a script called Crusades by Wild Bunch scribe Walon Green, Verhoeven pulled in his new muse, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as his leading man in a story that saw the Austrian oak play a Middle Eastern thief with some godlike skills. With the likes of Gary Sinise, Jennifer Connelly and even Charlton Heston poised to star, and promises of grand scale action action in the Holy Land, the project faltered in pre production and was shelved by studio Carolco with the films proposed $100 million budget being key to this decision. Interestingly, the bods at Carolco then turned their attentions to a then unproduced script going by the name of Cutthroat Island. Famously, this film went on to become both a critical and commercial failure spelling the end for the studio and offering a touch of cinematic irony to Crusades troubled tale. But what of Schwarzeneggers payday? In true heroic fashion he opted out of picking up his reported $20 million tab in favour of snatching rights to the script, all in the hope it will one day be made. This wasn't a bad move, as even today the web is still alive with the sound of Crusades, where it features in various polls for best unfilmed screenplay versions perpetrating to be Greens can be accessed online and given the violent promise of this picture, you can't help but wonder how this one would have panned out.
Shaun Davis
Contributor
Shaun is a former contributor for a number of Future Publishing titles and more recently worked as a staffer at Imagine Publishing.
He can now be found banking in the daytime and writing a variety of articles for What Culture, namely around his favourite topics of film, retro gaming, music, TV and, when he's feeling clever, literature.
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