SUMMARY
Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to the big screen for the first time in five years in a festive family comedy.
Schwarzenegger is teaming up with Alan Ritchson for Amazon MGM Studios’ The Man With the Bag .
The movie follows a former thief helping Santa save Christmas with a heist.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is making his first movie in 5 years, teaming up with Reacher’s Alan Ritchson for a Christmas comedy.
The legendary star of The Terminator, Commando and Total Recall last appeared on the big screen in 2019’s box office disappointment Terminator: Dark Fate.
Last year, Schwarzenegger followed fellow ‘80s legend and Tulsa King star Sylvester Stallone to the small screen, heading up Netflix’s action-comedy FUBAR.
Schwarzenegger’s next project sees him back in the movie game for the first time since 2019, teaming up with Reacher’s Ritchson for The Man with the Bag, a holiday family comedy directed by Adam Shankman and written by Allan Rice. The film’s synopsis reads as follows (via Deadline):
“When Santa’s magic bag is stolen, he turns to his naughty list to find Vance, a former thief, to help him get it back.
Along with his daughter, Santa, and a group of misfit elves, Vance will have to pull off the greatest heist of his life to save Christmas.”
Schwarzenegger Can Finally Make A Holiday Classic
Jingle All The Way Didn’t Quite Stick The Landing…
The Man with the Bag is not Schwarzenegger’s first time dipping his toe in holiday movie waters. Back in 1996, the action star softened his touch for Jingle All the Way, playing a regular guy on a wacky Christmas-time quest to score a highly sought-after action figure as a gift for his son.
Schwarzenegger’s family movie didn’t go over very well, however, as evidenced by its 20% fresh rating and 41% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
There are hundreds of movies made to celebrate the holiday season, but the best Santa Claus movies are good all year round.
Jingle All the Way is indeed not the holiday classic Schwarzenegger may have envisioned it becoming (despite its reasonably good $129 million box office gross). Nearly 30 years after that critical flop, he will try again with another Christmas project, this time taking more of a fantasy angle.
The team-up between Schwarzenegger and Ritchson is juicy as a pairing of a legendary action hero with a modern-day action star, though it might be juicier if they were starring together in an actual action film.
Ritchson’s combination of affability and unique physical presence is indeed reminiscent of the magic formula that made Schwarzenegger the biggest action star of the ’80s.
It’s yet to be seen how Ritchson and Schwarzenegger’s Man With the Bag characters shape up, but it’s a fair guess that Schwarzenegger is the one playing Santa this time around.
Jingle All the Way set the bar low for Schwarzenegger holiday films, and it won’t take much for the star’s new project to surpass it.
Schwarzenegger’s other upcoming project, Kung Fury 2 , does not yet have a release date.
Is Alan Ritchson Becoming The New Schwarzenegger?
Ritchson’s presence adds intrigue to the Man with the Bag mix, as the Reacher star continues his successful teaming with Amazon.
Ritchson’s physicality is a big part of why viewers have embraced him as Lee Child’s hulking justice-seeker Jack Reacher.
But he has a low-key sense of humor that helps him in selling the role, and makes him especially good at delivering one-liners.
That combination of affability and unique physical presence is indeed reminiscent of the magic formula that made Schwarzenegger the biggest action star of the ’80s.
Ritchson’s next chance at popping as an action movie star is in Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare , set to release on April 19, 2024.
The superhero-heavy action movie landscape is, of course, much different today than it was back then, when individual stars could become major names in non-IP films.
Because of this, the opportunities may not be there for Ritchson to catch on as a true movie star.
But the Reacher actor is a hit on the small screen, and his teaming with Schwarzenegger gives him a chance to expand his range, letting his natural likability take over, much as Schwarzenegger did in movies like Twins and Kindergarten Cop.
