Schwarzenegger was the absolute king of the box office in the 80s and 90s. His next two films will go directly to streaming

Let Schwarzenegger’s next thing go straight to streamingcoming from the actor who dominated the global box office for fifteen years (from ‘Terminator’ to ‘The End of Days’, passing through ‘Predator’, ‘Total Challenge’ and a ‘Dangerous Lies’ that raised almost 400 million dollars and it was the first film in history to exceed a budget of 100 million), it may seem like a step backwards. But yes: while those two projects land, he is also working on what he considers the definitive project of his career, and that one is going to theaters.

First movie. The first of these productions is titled ‘The Man with the Bag’ and arrives on December 2, 2026 on Prime Video. Adam Shankman (‘Modern Family’, ‘Only Murders in the Building’) directs a Christmas action comedy in which Schwarzenegger plays Santa Claus, whose magic bag of gifts is stolen and is forced to turn to an ex-thief recently released from prison and signed off his own list of naughty children to recover it. Alan Ritchson (‘Reacher’), Awkwafina and Ken Jeong complete the cast of this action-packed family entertainment.

Second movie. ‘The Kellys’ has a different register: it is a police thriller directed by Brad Peyton (‘San Andrés’), also for Prime Video. Liam Hemsworth is a New York cop whose wife is taken hostage by terrorists inside an abandoned military building. To rescue her he will have to team up with his own family. Among them is Schwarzenegger, although his exact role has not been detailed. The premiere is scheduled for 2027.

How we got here. We are not talking about a career exactly in decline: since his greatest hits triumphed in cinema, Schwarzenegger’s career has gone through unusual interruptions, such as his political career. When he returned to the (other) showbiz, in 2023, he made his television debut with ‘FUBAR’, a spy comedy for Netflix that started with 11 million views in its first two days. The second season, however, barely lasted a week in the Top 10, and was canceled.

However, his eternal rival and business partner Sylvester Stallone has gone in another direction. In ‘Tulsa King’, Stallone has found solid television continuity for his career, which has already been going on for two seasons and counting. One possible cause is that Stallone built a new image from scratch on television, while Schwarzenegger tried to export his action image to streaming, and it didn’t quite stick.

Conan King. Meanwhile, the actor is working on what he describes as the central project of this last phase of his career. ‘King Conan’ is scheduled to begin filming in 2027, with Christopher McQuarrie (director of the last four ‘Mission: Impossible’) at the helm, for 20th Century Studios and with distribution planned in theaters.

Schwarzenegger described the project with a reference that says a lot about the tone and intentions of the project: ‘Unforgiven’ by Clint Eastwood. The idea is to portray a Conan who has been king for forty years, who has aged, who no longer has the physique of his glory years and who is beginning to be vulnerable. An action hero in decline as dramatic material: very far from what he is going to try now for streaming.

In Xataka | Romantic series continue to arouse passions and Amazon has 25 million viewers to corroborate it