2. Putting Superstars In Movies Inevitably Leads To Problems
Ever since WWE has become not just a pro wrestling organization, but a filmmaker, too, there have been numerous instances wherein the company splitting their priorities between wrestling and filmmaking have proven troublesome. Foremost, there's the issue of The Rock. There are those still employed in WWE like John Cena who feel as though The Rock in many ways left the company to become an actor on not-so-good terms, especially given that he didn't "put over" the company's then rising talents like himself, Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar while he was still in his prime. At present, WWE has solved that issue with WWE Films acting as a talent broker for larger films, purchasing scripts and developing film franchises for their talents so that they are able to satiate the acting bug but still remain employed by WWE. John Cena and The Miz have excelled as The Marine, and everyone from Bad News Barrett and Santino Marella to the Big Show and Triple H have acted as well. This bears a striking resemblance to what occurred when early era Saturday Night Live stars like Dan Akroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Eddie Murphy caught the acting bug and left the SNL cast between 1975-1984. That era was a groundbreaking "Attitude" type era for the NBC program, those four performers key to the program's indie-to-mainstream success. Similar to how The Rock left for Hollywood and did not allow for an easy transition to a talented new crew of performers, Aykroyd and Belushi becoming The Blues Brothers on film, Chevy Chase only appearing for one season and Eddie Murphy departing after 48 Hours and Trading Places, placed SNL into a difficult few years between 1984-1990. Of course, similar to WWE, SNL became it's own movie making vehicle, Lorne Michaels-as-Vince McMahon working with his cast on films starting with 1992's Wayne's World and taking a far more active role as a direct intermediary between his cast and the film industry. While not quite completely similar to WWE, the issues regarding the movie business interfering with the quality of the programming certainly parallel.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
