Is the special election in November for California's governorship really just chance for Arnold to get out of politics and back into Hollywood? Probably not, but if that's the case why on earth is someone bothering to make sequel films that shouldn't be made, well, at all...but certainly not without Schwarzenegger.
Nevertheless, Moviehole is reporting that print sources indicate sequels to Commando and True Lies being on studios' to-do lists in the not too distant future.
It would appear that True Lies will manage to get around the lack of Arnold by turning the concept into a franchise. I guess that means each movie will circulate around a different special agent whose secret identity is revealed unexpectedly to his (or her) spouse who then gets caught up in the spy business. It's like James Bond, except for couples. Nevermind that Mr. and Mrs. Smith 2 is already on its way to cornering that market. No, I'm not kidding, that sequel is already in the works as well.
No word on what Commando 2 would be about. I suppose it could circulate around Alyssa Milano taking over her father's job and running around randomly blowing up buildings and garroting people in an effort to rescue her kidnapped son. But why stop there? Throw in a couple of Greek gods and you have Xena: The Motion Picture, a much more plausible concept.
Meanwhile, the powers behind the unnecessary sci-fi remake of Westworld, a film Arnold was originally slated to produce and star in, have apparently come to grips and moved on. According to Variety, the project is continuing with a director, Tarem Singh (remember The Cell?), already attached. According to his spokeswoman, Schwarzenegger has no plans to be involved at this time. If he wins the election, he's out of play until January 2007 at which point he could still seek re-election.
The good news is that Arnold isn't likely to appear in any additional Terminator 4 movies either. I'm sorry, but it's kind of hard to take a self-aware, human slaughtering super computer seriously when it's dressing its assassin robots up like 60 year old men.
