Variety say that out of the number of scripts that have fallen on his desk these past few weeks (I bet three figures)
Arnold Schwarzenegger has shown the most interest in two projects that could make his long-awaited return to movies. They are Lionsgate's actioner
Last Stand to be directed by I Saw The Devil and The Good, The Bad, The Weird's awesome helmer
Jee-woon Kim (for which an official offer has been made) and Summit's
The Tomb, a new thriller from
Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Brooklyn's Finest). Despite a number of his former characters being offered to him as potential franchise revivals (The Running Man & Commando we've heard most prominently) encouragingly these are both original pieces. Last Stand, to be produced by
Lorenzo di Bonaventura, would find Schwarzenegger as a border-town sheriff who along with his inexperienced rookies, squares off against a Mexican cartel boss. The movie was originally scripted by rookie scribe
Andrew Knauer & Traitor writer/director
Jeffrey Nachmanoff for Liam Neeson to star but he has since moved on to a sequel of Taken. The idea of Arnie making his long awaited acting return in a bad-ass sounding drug thriller directed by the incredibly talented Korean helmer is beyond our wildest dreams cool. Jee-woon Kim previously described the movie to
Coming Soon;
"t's kind of a combination of 'Die Hard' and 'High Noon' where (the latter) was about protecting something very important that needs to be protected, while 'Die Hard' is a very drawn-out, long process that almost kills someone in the process. So my film will be something that has to be very well protected and, in the process, we almost die protecting it in a way."
Meanwhile Fuqua's The Tomb, for which he will direct, is a thriller that follows "an authority on structural security who's framed for a crime and put in a high-security prison that he designed". The movie was written by
Miles Chapman and
Jason Keller, the latter who wrote Marc Foster's in development thriller Machine Gun Preacher and sounds like a pretty ordinary genre flick. But maybe that's not a bad thing for Arnie's first outing back in front of the camera? Schwarzenegger is said to be weighing up the pro's and cons of both after numerous rounds of talks and will make his decision soon - though we are told he has not yet met with Last Stand director Kim. And Fuqua looks more likely to shoot his
Tupac biopic this summer, which would delay The Tomb probably until 2013, and Arnie seems keen on a return to acting sooner rather than later.