Schwarzenegger on Why He Didn't Do DIE HARD and THE ROCK

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been offered a ton movie roles in his career that he never took for one reason or another. He was offered lead roles for movies such as Die Hard, The Rock, Full Metal Jacket and even was supposed to play Doctor Octopus in James Cameron's abandoned Spider-Man. Can you imagine what these movies would have been like had Schwarzenegger been in them? They would have been completely different films. 

In a recent interview with Empire, Schwarzenegger gives us a little information on why he ended up not doing Die Hard or The Rock. The actor said producer Don Simpson burst into his trailer one day "totally stoned" with 85 pages of the script for the The Rock with handwritten notes all over it by Jerry Bruckheimer saying,

He says, 'Here, look at this script. But don't read it! Just, here's what the premise is. He was all over the place," he explains. "I said, 'Look, Don. I can't make a commitment based on what you're showing me here. You won't even let me read the script! Why don't you bake it some more, develop it some more then we'll talk again.' He was very upset. He just walked out and then went to Nicolas Cage with the part...

The Rock ended up being a great action film, one of the few films I've enjoyed that stars Nic Cage. But it's kind of funny to think about Arnold in that role, because he really doesn't fit that character Cage played at all. Makes me wonder what they originally had planned.

When it came to Die Hard, Schwarzenegger explained "...there was an unfinished script, which someone gave me and said, 'Would you want to play this?' I was working with Joel Silver on Predator and Die Hard was his next movie. So we talked about it but then he hired Bruce Willis."

I could actually see why they wanted Schwarznegger in the John McClain role, but I'm happy it ultimately went to Bruce Willis because he was awesome. It would be really interesting to see how these films would have turned out with Schwarznegger on board. I wish there was a way we could see these alternate reality films!

Would you have liked to see Schwarznegger in any of these role over the actors that ultimately got them?