Eduardo Noriega Is Villain in Arnold Schwarzenegger's LAST STAND
The Governator's big comeback movie follows Arnie as a disgraced LAPD cop who moves to a new job in a small town where he is tasked with taking down Cortez (Noriega), a drug cartel leader who busted out of prison and is trying to flee to Mexico with $400 million.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has had to face some menacing villains in his time. Who can forget the unstoppable and unrelenting Robert Patrick in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the ultimate all seeing evil Gabriel Byrne as The Devil in End of Days, the madness of the Christmas Day shopping spree in Jingle All The Way, or even a clone of himself in The Sixth Day? So with that being said, Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega sure has some big shoes to fill as the baddie in Last Stand, the upcoming action movie that marks The Governator's big comeback to acting, his first leading role since Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines that was released eight years ago. Variety confirmed the casting yesterday. Last Stand is the English language, Hollywood debut of I Saw The Devil's South Korean helmer director Kim Ji-woon and will follow Arnie as a disgraced LAPD cop who moves to a new job in a small town where he is tasked with taking down Cortez (Noriega), a drug cartel leader who busted out of prison and is trying to flee to Mexico with $400 million. Yeah, it's that kind of B-movie and a strange one to have attracted such an accomplished director but one that could be heaps of fun and should ease Schwarzenegger back into his familiar comfort zone of on screen bad-assery. Thor's Jaimie Alexander, Zach Gilford and Rodrigo Santoro are the team of cops working with Arnie on the case with Peter Stormare also supporting as a henchman for Cortez. As for Noriega, you will probably remember him as leading Open Your Eyes, the Spanish thriller that Cameron Crowe turned into Vanilla Sky and also from Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone. The film has gone through a bunch of re-writes since first time scribe Andrew Knauer birthed the idea with re-drafting by The Day After Tomorrow/Traitor's Jeffrey Nachmanoff and most recently The Adjustment Bureau's George Nolfi. It will begin filming October 20th in Mexico and Lionsgate has worldwide rights for a Jan. 18, 2013 release. Meanwhile Schwarzenegger is currently filming his 'more substantial' part in The Expendables 2 and an image emerged to the web recently of the action icons Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis along with Arnie on set. The Expendables 2 hits August 17th, 2012 (but we imagine we'll be seeing The Dark Knight Rises by the 8th time then)... 