Indiana Jones has a lot of knowledge about the ancient world, documenting everything he discovers by putting it in his Journal. He would be lost without it, and his Journal would be nothing without all the maps and notes you’ll find in The Great Circle. When he’s wandering the halls of Marshall College, here are the…
Indiana Jones is known for a few things. The hat. The whip. Archaeology. But one of the things he’s best known for is punching fascists (Nazi, or otherwise).
Indiana Jones has a lot of knowledge about the ancient world, documenting everything he discovers by putting it in his Journal. He would be lost without it, and his Journal would be nothing without all the maps and notes you’ll find in The Great Circle. When he’s wandering the halls of Marshall College, here are the…
Indiana Jones is known for a few things. The hat. The whip. Archaeology. But one of the things he’s best known for is punching fascists (Nazi, or otherwise).
A third film in the Marvel Comics-inspired Venom franchise made its way through production last year, shutting down for several months along the way due to the Screen Actors Guild strike. The film, titled Venom: The Last Dance, reached theatres back in October and has earned over $472 million at the global box office… making it the least success entry in the franchise, since Venom made $856 million and Venom: Let There Be Carnage made $501 million. Now, Venom: The Last Dance is ready to come home, as SuperHeroHype reports that it will be receiving a digital release this week, on December 10th.
The first Venom was scripted by Jeff Pinker, Scott Rosenberg, and Kelly Marcel. Ruben Fleischer directed that film, which made $856 million. But then Fleischer turned his focus to making Zombieland: Double Tap and Uncharted – so Andy Serkis took over as director on Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Which was written by Kelly Marcel, working from a story she crafted with star Tom Hardy. That sequel earned $506 million at the pandemic era global box office. Serkis said he would be glad to return to the helm for a follow-up – but when Venom 3 actually did come up, he opted to focus on other projects instead. So Venom: The Last Dance marks the feature directorial debut of Kelly Marcel. She also wrote the screenplay, based (again) on a story she crafted with Hardy.
Here is the official synopsis from the studio: In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance.
Hardy reprised the role of Eddie Brock / Venom for this sequel, and he is joined in the cast by Juno Temple (Ted Lasso), Clark Backo (Letterkenny), and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). Plus, Serkis shows up as Knull, the God of the Symbiotes.
Are you glad to hear that Venom: The Last Dance is getting a digital release this week? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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It’s time for another reverse Uno card of a video. When we are looking at something standing the Test of Time, its usually through the lens of “is it still good” or “is it still impactful”? The holy grail or Mount Rushmore of slashers have an easy answer to that. Halloween, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and A Nightmare on Elm Street are all unimpeachable in their legacy and entertainment value but what about their sequels and remakes? Weve looked at a few of them either through this show seeing if they are still fun as well as Andrew or Lance defending some of them in our Black Sheep videos. Rob Zombie is pretty divisive in general, but he had the extremely difficult task of making not only the remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween in 2007 but also a sequel to that in 2009. He was told he could have free reign and reluctantly agreed after the first one nearly killed him. After 15 years and a new trilogy of films to mull over, has Halloween II gotten any better or is it still derided and hard to watch?
Plot
Rob Zombie’s Halloween in 2007 could have been an abysmal failure. A lot of people still don’t care for it, and it wasn’t a critical darling but failure it was not. It made 80 million on its 15-million-dollar budget and that was more than enough to get another movie going. Malek Akkad would announce as much at the 30 Years of Terror convention in 2008. While it was announced as a sequel to Rob Zombie’s film, it was unclear if Zombie would come back for it. The creators of the French New Extreme movie Inside, Julien Murray and Alexandre Bustillo, were thought to be coming on but Zombie was convinced to come back. He wasn’t keen on the idea after the exhaustion of the first one caused him, but he was also told by the producers that not only did they really want him to return, but also that he could do whatever he wanted. He was allowed to ignore some of the franchise rules the Akkad family had put into place and was allowed to not have it feel like Carpenter at all.
For the record, the movie that we will be discussing today is the theatrical cut and not the director’s cut. We like a good director’s cut but with it not being the originally screened feature, it doesn’t really count in our minds as it could have made the movie better for some and worse for others. The main cast returned with Scout Taylor Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris, Tyler Mane, and Brad Dourif reprising their roles as Laurie, Loomis, Annie, Michael Myers, and Sheriff Brackett. Sheri Moon Zombie would also come back in a limited capacity as a ghostly version of her character from the first movie, Michael’s mom. New to the series would be a mix of classic horror actors and actors that either were already or would become a part of Zombie’s troupe of actors. These include Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’s Caroline Willimas, Margot Kidder, and Richard Brake. We would also have Howard Hessman, Brea Grant, Octavia Spencer, and Dayton Callie in various roles. One actor who did not come back was Daeg Faerch because he had grown too much for the role. He was replaced by actor Chase Wright Vanek.
The movie opens immediately after the ending of the first one with a severely injured Laurie stumbling down the road with the pistol she used to shoot Michael. She is found by the sheriff’s department and taken to the hospital where we see in gruesome detail just how much damage was done. Annie is also alive and in the same hospital where Laurie is, and she wants to watch over her friend. Unfortunately, Michael is alive and has made his way to the hospital where he has killed his way to Laurie. He chases her until he has a cornered and then finally strikes her down only to wake her up from the nightmare she is having.
It is now a year later, and Laurie is in rough shape. She lives with her best friend Annie and her Sherrif father but is in therapy and can’t seem to get it together. Michaels body was never found but she is certain he is dead. Sam Loomis has written a book on the events and is on a tour trying to hype it up. We see that Michael is in fact alive and sees a vision of his younger self, mom, and a white horse with his mother telling him to return to Laurie to make them whole again. He treks across the state and kills more and more people that get in his way. As he gets closer to Haddonfield and Laurie, her condition worsens, and she begins to have hallucinations that both have her act out his previous murders but also see parts of his early life and mother. Loomis is getting blamed for the rampage that Michael went on and his book has other unintended consequences. It reveals to the public, and Laurie herself, that she is Michael’s sister, and her real name is Angel.
This sets her off and she goes to a Halloween party with some friends. While she is there, Michael kills Annie and then her other friends before taking her to an abandoned shed. The police and Loomis find the shed as well and Loomis goes inside to try and save Laurie. Michael kills him and then is shot by Brackett before getting stabbed by Laurie. Laurie, now completely broken, puts on the mask and goes outside to be whisked off to an asylum where she now has visions of her mom. A sequel titled Halloween 3D was scrapped both after Zombie left the project and in general. The Unrated Directors cut was released on video and is actually the most common physical version, but not the most common streaming one.
Signs of the Time
This is very much in the height of the remake boom. From 03 to, well, now, we had everything from Texas Chainsaw to Halloween to Friday the 13th to My Bloody Valentine all getting the remake treatment. While this is a sequel to a remake, it also slyly remakes the original Halloween II in the opening sequence. Another sign of the time, or at least sign of the Rob Zombie movie, is his casting choices. We have our standard actors that show up in a ton of his work like Richard Brake, Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon, Jeff Daniel Phillips, and Daniel Roebuck but we also get some fun random actors too. These include Howard Hessman from Clue and WKRP in Cincinnati, Margot Kidder from Superman and the original Black Christmas which is one of Zombie’s favorites, and Bill Fagerbakke, or, Patrick Star from SpongeBob. His other movies do this as well with Lords of Salem having a rare Patricia Quinn from Rocky Horror sighting.
There are a couple other things that are signs of the time too. While there isn’t any social media presence here, Loomis writing his book and going on tour to make money and capitalize on the tragedy is very much a thing. Think of those TikTok or Instagram reels where someone sets up an artsy shot to then explain something tragic. It can’t be that tragic to you if you had the time to be a cinematographer. This movie was also a bit of a trendsetter both with the series and other remakes and legacy sequels by really showing off the trauma caused by the events of the first movie. Personally, I think it was done much better than in Texas Chainsaw 2022 and right on par with Laurie in Halloween 2018 which brings us to…
What Holds Up?
I know that Scout Taylor Compton gets grief for her portrayal of Laurie but it’s good in the first movie and it’s even better here. She goes through it all and is justifiably upset. Compton acts like she is actually going through it and the PTSD as well as scenes of her trying to figure out her life are really good. That PTSD even extends to Michael as he allows people to beat on him a little bit before fighting back. He even goes maskless during a large chunk of the movie and only goes back after Laurie and Haddonfield after he starts having delusions of his younger self and his mom. The rest of the cast does a good job too with a special shout out to Danielle Harris who has survived and fought more than anyone in this franchise apart from Curtis and Donald Pleasence. She plays it well with trying to help her friend but also put her own life back together after the events of the first movie. Other standouts are the always delightful Daniel Roebuck and the legendary Brad Dourif who gives a great speech about meat and Lee Marvin.
The sly recreation of the original Halloween II was a nice touch with the opening hospital scene. It does a good job of being realistic right up until the end of it when Michael stabs Laurie and wakes her up from her dream. It is a complete remake of that movie in the sense that it takes what that movie brought to the series, mostly that Laurie and Michael are related, and does its own thing with the material. The score throughout is also pretty good and they show restraint by only using the music from the OG movies until the very end. From score to gore and the FX in this movie are complicated with the opening being easily the most uncomfortable part and most of the rest, apart from Roebuck’s death, being much more subtle than you’d expect from both the source material and director. What they do show is effective and even what they don’t show works with the very squishy sound effects. The final two things to point out are Laurie learning of her heritage through the book and the ending. Brackett trying to tell her himself but failing almost sets the last act off and may have led to his own daughter’s death and the ending makes good on what Halloween 4 promised with a new person taking over the Myers killer lineage. The director’s cut is more direct, but the theatrical is more horrifying.
What doesn’t hold up?
People that were upset with how young Michael was handled in the first part of this duology will bite their togue as the replacement for Daeg does not do a great job. While the kills are cool and how Tyler Mane plays the Shape are nice, how Michael is written and directed does not hold up. I understand that the Akkad family gave Zombie free reign but that should have been just his idea to kill Michael in both movies. Someone should have definitely stopped Rob from having a maskless, grunting, and thinking Myers. The directors cut is even more egregious with him actually saying “Die” but the grunting and walking around in a hoodie take away from the spirit of the franchise and killer as a whole.
While I think Loomis being a prima donna and a bit of a dick is annoying, the character does go full crazy in part 5 so its at least an interesting direction to go and he does have somewhat of an arc when he tries to do the right thing at the end. On a similar train to that, people being mad at Loomis is dumb, at least for the reasons they give. Loomis is capitalizing off of a tragedy to be sure, but he wanted to stop Michael, so the deaths are not his fault. Finally, a lot of the people are just crummy and written poorly. Zombie is a visual filmmaker who knows how to make people uncomfortable and write with the nihilism of the movies he grew up with but his dialogue and character development usually falls flat.
Verdict
This is a tough one. I think that the director’s cut is the one I was most familiar with, and that version is easily the worst of the two. The theatrical cut tries different things with the characters and series and even does some things better than the last two David Gordon Green movies were able to pull off. This movie is finally starting to age well like Halloween III eventually did and while it doesn’t quite hold up now, its getting better and better and I’d rather watch it than Kills or Ends. Halloween II needs some more time to soak but like its masked killer, its stalking its way towards a better reputation.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Test of Time can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
The post Halloween II (2009) – The Test of Time appeared first on JoBlo.
While Dwayne Johnson is currently enjoying success with Moana 2‘s box office run, he also had an earlier release last month that made number one at the box office upon its premiere — the Christmas adventure movie Red One. The dual November releases would have Johnson accomplish a feat previously accomplished by Nicolas Cage back in June of 1997 with the movies Face Off and Con-Air, where he would see two films open to number one within a given month.
Deadline is now reporting that Red One is now set to stream for home viewing in time for Christmas this week on Thursday, December 12. The Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans Santa abduction movie will be available on Prime Video after the movie played in the standard Amazon 28-day theatrical window that previous originals like Saltburn and Air also had. Red One was originally intended to be streaming from the get-go, but Johnson claimed an IMAX screening of Oppenheimer inspired him to push for a big-screen release. Although the movie will be available for streaming, it will still finish out a theatrical run.
The movie had a pretty pricey budget of over $200 million and would gross $85.7M domestically and make $164M worldwide through Sunday. When asked what makes Red One special as a Christmas movie, he stated, “For me, it’s fresh. I’m a Christmas purist, so I take seriously how we depict Santa, how we depict the North Pole, and what kind of message are we sending. But everything about this movie kind of turns that on its head. It’s Santa like you’ve never seen. It’s the North Pole like you’ve never seen. This movie just knocked it all out of the park and gave it a fun, fresh, exciting new look at these things that we all know so well.”
Then, Johnson added, “In addition to what Chris said, a lot of times in these Christmas movies, there’s not a lot of action. We’re certainly not on this scale, and we need a guy like Jake Kasdan, who understands big-scale action, comedy, and heart. That’s the number one thing. I think what really drove Red One for us was just to make sure that we had a message. Ultimately, you could get lost in the visual effects. It’s beautiful, the North Pole like you’ve never seen it. The reindeer are 15, 20ft high, Santa Claus is completely jacked and muscular. But what’s the message? The world is noisy, it’s loud. A lot is going on, especially lately. If you look around every corner, you could find a lot of negativity and a lot of pessimism. As Santa Claus says in our movie, you want to look past that in people and see the child in everybody.”
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We all know Arnold Schwarzenegger terminated the 1980s as the premiere action movie star alongside Stallone, but what about the 90s? Beyond Total Recall, T-2: Judgment Day, and True Lies, what’s the best Arnie action flick released between 1990 and 1999? And when we mean best, we don’t mean box office success, we’re talking about old-school ass-kicking Schwarzenegger action hinting at the halcyon days that date back to Commando and Conan the Barbarian. Is it Last Action Hero? End of Days? Or is it Chuck Russell’s underrated 1996 conspiracy espionage thriller Eraser? If you said Junior, Jingle All the Way, or Batman & Robin, you may kindly show yourselves out the door this instant. Better yet, stick around, Eraser is about to wipe your memory and prove why it’s the last great Arnie action flick to blast the masses in the 1990s.
From the rocky relationship between producer and director, multiple script rewrites, expensive costs, and last-minute casting decisions, to filming the awesome action sequences, introducing the high-tech Rail Gun, obscure in-movie references, media spin-offs, and the ridiculous 2022 reboot, it’s time to reflect on the most expensive movie of 1996 and ask point blank: What Happened to Eraser?!?
Okay, so a quick plot rundown will help explain one of the biggest trivial tidbits about Eraser. Schwarzenegger stars in the movie as U.S. Marshal John Kruger, aka Eraser, a witness protection agent specializing in eliminating, or erasing, the identities of key eye-witnesses who could testify against organized criminals in court. When Kruger is assigned to Erase a whistleblowing employee named Lee Cullen, he becomes entangled in a vast conspiratorial web of deceit involving the Cyrez Corporation and its development of a high-tech rail gun, also known as an electromagnetic rifle.
Now, in the original script, the Cyrez Corporation was named Cyrex. However, a Texas-based microprocessing company named Cyrex, one of Intel’s main rivals, protested all references to Cyrix had to be removed after the movie was shot. Not only were verbal references to Cyrix altered with post-dubbing, but all visual signposts for the Cyrix Corporation had to be digitally erased, a costly process in 1996. Still, some scenes retain the abbreviation CYX, an obvious reference to Cyrix before it was changed to Cyrez.
Speaking of costly processes, it’s worth noting upfront that Eraser was the most expensive Hollywood movie of 1996, along with Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Produced by Anne and Arnold Kopleson and distributed by Warner Bros., Eraser boasted a $100 million budget headed into principal photography in 1995. Before detailing the filming process, more about Eraser’s casting and development is necessary.
For instance, while horror heads will always know Chuck Russell for his work on A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the killer remake of The Blob, the director catapulted into the mainstream following the massive success of Jim Carey’s The Mask, setting Russell up as a major Hollywood player. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger was in transition himself after the notorious flop Last Action Hero and a deliberate shift to more comedic family fare with Junior and Jingle All the Way. In the mid-90s, Russell and Schwarzenegger were busy collaborating on a different project when Eraser was sent their way. After reading the script, Russell felt Arnie was perfect for the role of John Kruger, stating:
“I see Arnold the way a lot of people do – as a mythic, bigger-than-life character – and that’s who Kruger is. The character and the scenario are based firmly in reality, but I liked the mythic proportions of this man with a strong sense of duty, a strong sense of honor, who will literally do anything to protect a noble witness. I was excited about doing a film that had heroic proportions.”
Despite Russell feeling Arnie was right for the role, Sylvester Stallone was offered the part before Schwarzenegger was cast. Yet, Stallone hated the Eraser script so much that he instantly declined the role and opted to star in Copland instead. Of course, Sly and Shwarz would cross cinematic paths more than a decade later with The Expandables and Escape Plan. Speaking of Stallone, Eraser fans may notice how similar Alan Silvestri’s score is to his musical arrangements for Judge Dredd, Stallone’s cult-classic misfire released one year earlier.
Although Tony Puryear and Walon Green are credited for the screenplay, several writers were hired to rework the Eraser script. John Milius did uncredited script work as a personal favor to Arnie following their work on Conan. Frank Darabont, Graham Yost, and William Wisher were recruited midway through production to iron out the story problems. Wisher co-wrote The Terminator and T-2 Judgment Day with James Cameron, making him a familiar fit with Arnie. John Pogue also did script rewrites for Eraser, most of his contributions did not make it into the final movie. Pogue would go on to direct the forgettable 2022 direct-to-disc reboot, Eraser: Reborn.
Along with William Wisher, cinematographer Adam Greenberg was deliberately hired to work on Eraser based on his previous experience with Arnie on both Terminator films. Schwarzenegger personally selected Greenberg, assuring the producers that he could stay on schedule while delivering visceral action sequences. The stellar Terminator pedigree partially led to Russell’s assessment that Eraser “is a crowd pleaser” that is “Still fun to watch.”
According to the making-of documentary, Arnie had his hands in every creative department. As a bona fide movie star and shrewd businessman, Arnie had an imprint on the marketing, ads, music, stunt choreography, and emphasis on the story to ensure the utmost tension and suspense. Far from a mere actor, Arnie deserves credit as a filmmaker and storyteller who contributed a lot to Eraser behind the scenes.
Apart from Arnie’s role, other actors were considered for Lee Cullen before singer and actress Vanessa Williams was cast. While Arnie’s wife Maria Shriver recommended Williams to the Koplesons, Brooke Shields was offered the role but had to decline due to scheduling issues. Megan Follows was also briefly considered before former Miss America, Williams, was paired with former Mr. Universe, Schwarzenegger.
As for U.S. Marshal Robert DeGuerin, Jonathan Pryce was considered before James Caan was cast in a rare mainstream blockbuster. According to Caan, he and Arnie got along quite well while making Eraser, stating, “Arnold and I had fun. We did that macho stuff, but we were always poking fun at it, too.”
Before the role of mobster Johnny Casteleone was given to Robert Pastorelli, everyone from Robin Williams, Rock Moranis, and Dan Aykroyd to Terence Hill, Bud Spencer, and Gene Wilder were considered. However, nothing was more important than casting the right lead, which producer Arnold Kopelson knew Schwarzenegger was right for. According to Kopleson:
“I see Arnold the way a lot of people do — as a mythic, bigger-than-life character — and that’s who Kruger is,
For many years, Arnold and I have talked about working together. I knew that `Eraser’ was the perfect project for him. When Arnold committed to the title role, I was thrilled. That thrilling feeling was reinforced each day of the production as I watched him perform. Working with Arnold has been one of the most pleasurable experiences of my filmmaking career.”
Although working with Arnie was pleasant, Kopelson DID NOT GET ALONG WELL with Chuck Russell while making Eraser. Communications virtually ceased between the two, requiring Schwarzenegger to mediate on set. Russell and Kopelson would speak to Arnie separately, and organize the logistics of the shooting schedule on their behalf. The fact that Eraser became a success is downright remarkable considering the director and producer had difficulty working together and hardly spoke while making the movie.
Speaking of the making, Eraser entered principal photography on September 13, 1995, and wrapped on March 31, 1996. The six-month film shoot began in New York, photographing in the South Bronx’s Harlem Rail Yard, Chinatown, Brooklyn Borough Hall, and Sheep Meadow in Central Park. For a certain scene set in Queens, the production team built an identical, full-scale model of a real house in the area just to be exploded on camera. Additionally, many scenes were conceived with sets built and lit but were never filmed. This contributed to the $100 million budget, as did one scene requiring a combination of animatronic, CGI, and live alligators to create what producers called Crocogators for their hybrid qualities. To wit, a romantic ending between Kruger and Cullen was filmed but discarded and replaced with reshot footage when it tested poorly.
Once filming wrapped in New York, the production moved to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California. Believe it or not, the New York Zoo sequence set inside the Reptile House was filmed across the country on a Warner Bros. studio soundstage in Burbank, California. In addition to the studio sets, downtown locations in Los Angeles were filmed along with areas in Santa Clarita, Topanga Canyon, El Segundo, Pasadena, and Griffith Park. The interior Zoo scenes in the film were shot in an old closed-down portion of the Zoo in Griffith Park, a sprawling plot of land that also houses The Griffith Observatory and Greek Theater. The iconic locale presented a full-circle moment for Schwarzenegger, who famously filmed a scene at Griffith Observatory in The Terminator, a sequence revisited from a different perspective in Terminator: Genisys.
For the aerial action, Arnie was fitted into roughly 10 flying apparatuses for one week of filming. One of the most trying sequences to film included Kruger having to eject from a jet flying at ultra-high, 250 mph speed. According to Russell, the sequence was patched together through piecemeal editing, stating:
“These things are jigsaw puzzle pieces not only within shooting the sequence but within each shot. You had elements that were live action, elements that were miniature, sometimes computer-generated, and they’re all married together in the final processing.”
As usual, Schwarzenegger performed many of his stunts in the film (as did Williams), including when Kruger falls from roughly 65 feet in the air and performs a mid-air backflip. The scene took seven takes to nail, with skillful editing and VFX making it appear like Kruger drops down, straight past the flaming jet engine in one unbroken sequence. According to Warner Bros. official production notes:
On Warner Bros.’ Stage 16, the largest soundstage on the Burbank lot, the fuselage of the plane was constructed, and the actor was strapped into a “descender rig.” Beginning with Kruger’s desperate struggle to hang onto the door of the plane, the shot continues as he lets go, backflips through the exploding engine of the plane, and drops off into free fall. No stuntman has ever accomplished a backflip during a drop like this, but Schwarzenegger managed the feat seven times to get the shot. Onscreen, aided by inventive camera angles and special effects, Kruger appears to drop along the length of the fuselage and past the flaming engine, but no wizardry was necessary to re-create the reality of the film’s star clearly performing the stunt himself.
As for the gnarly sniper shot through the rifle scope and eyeball on the docks at the end of the film, many have noticed how it is nearly identical to a scene from Robocop 2 down to the head sniper’s precise head movements. However, it’s more of an overt reference to Carlos Hathcock, a notorious U.S. sniper during the Vietnam War who famously killed an enemy the same way.
On a more trivial note, it’s worth noting that Schwarzenegger does not utter his famous cinematic catchphrase, “I’ll be Back,” made popular in the Terminator franchise. However, Kruger does respond to a colleague, saying “I’ll Be Right Out” during an intense action sequence.
Aside from being one of Schwarzenneger’s last box-office action hits, Eraser’s most lasting legacy is introducing the world to the Rail Gun – the crucial high-tech military-grade weapon that incites the plot. Lee Cullen is put in grave danger after warning the FBI that the Cyrez Corporation has created the Rail Gun for mass consumption. According to Russell and Schwarzenegger, it was paramount for the filmmakers to create a menacing weapon rooted in reality. As Russell states:
“Rail guns are hyper-velocity weapons that shoot aluminum or clay rounds at just below the speed of light. In our film, we’ve taken existing stealth technology one step further and given them an X-ray scope sighting system. These guns represent a whole new technology in weaponry that is still in its infancy, though a large-scale version exists in limited numbers on battleships and tanks. They have an incredible range. They can pierce three-foot-thick cement walls and then knock a canary off a tin can with absolute accuracy. In our film, one contractor has finally developed an assault-sized rail gun. We researched this quite a bit, and the technology is really just around the corner, which is one of the exciting parts of the story.”
Schwarzenegger weighed in, adding:
We paid a lot of attention to making the audience feel the danger of this weapon, that anyone can be outside of your house, looking right through the walls. It really leaves you nowhere to hide. But, on top of that, we show the sophistication of the weapon in a lot of fun ways: you not only see through a building, you see a person’s skeleton and even their heart beating inside. There are some great visual effects there.”
Eraser deserves all the credit for popularizing the EM Rail Gun, a weaponized mainstay in 21st-century video games. The railgun was loosely featured in the obscure PC video game Eraser: Turnabout, an early full-motion video rail shooter released in 1997. The weapon spawned an entire genre of rail shooters that relied on firearms that operated using electricity rather than bullets. One example includes the Shock Rifle featured in Unreal Tournament, the 1999 rail shooter inspired by Eraser.
The U.S. Military created the Rail Guns in real life, although they were originally meant to be fitted on Naval Ships rather than for personal use. The same railgun featured in Eraser can be spotted in Spielberg’s Ready Player One, a gigantic cinematic easter egg full of pop-culture references. There was also an Eraser novelization by Robert Tine published in 1996. The final credits play the song “Where Do We Go From Here,” performed by Vanessa Williams.
Despite its high cost of production, Eraser wiped out the box-office competition when it blasted theaters in June 1996. The film grossed an impressive $242 million internationally, marking one of Schwarzenegger’s last bona fide hit action movies. Before the film opened theatrically, Schwarzenegger premiered Eraser in Video Village at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta Georgia ahead of a Goo Goo Dolls concert. More trivially, Eraser was among the first motion pictures released on DVD when Warner Bros. Home Entertainment offered it in December 1996.
Although Eraser’s commercial success did not warrant an immediate sequel starring The Schwarz, the poor and unnecessary Eraser: Reborn quickly came and went in 2022. The silly sequel opened theatrically in Germany before going straight-to-video elsewhere.
And that’s What Happened to Eraser. The project came about while Russell and Schwarzenegger were busy working on another movie, it required multiple revisions from high-profile screenwriters and necessitated Arnie to mediate between Russell and producer Arnold Kopelson after they did not get along well. Filming occurred on the East and West coasts, using studio sets and real locations, often combining live-action with early CGI. Yet, Eraser will likely be remembered most for introducing the world to the electromagnetic rail gun, a high-tech weapon proliferating in pop culture in the past three decades. Almost 30 years later, Eraser may also remain Scwarzenegger’s most financially successful Last Action Hero movie ever.
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The San Diego Convention Center’s annual report reveals Comic-Con’s huge economic impact…and how it compares to other events
Marvel Rivals is the hottest new thing in the realm of hero shooters. And, it has launched with over 30 popular characters from the Marvel universe. While it’s important to spend time trying out every character to find one that works best for you, they all have different skill ceilings to consider. So, if you’re new…