Athletes and Hollywood: Why so many athletes want to break into the movies
From Mike Tyson to Michael Jordan to The Rock, it seems a lot of professional athletes want to get into the movie business. It could be that they are looking for an even bigger pay-check at the end of the day or they want even more fame and fortune, but it seems to be a resoundingly common trend amongst most athletes; give them the opportunity and they will jump in the first movie they can. Not a lot of movies that have featured athletes in starring roles have been highly successful, but they still keep coming out with new movies all the time. It seems to be high time that athletes left acting to the professionals and concentrated on what they do best.
It seems the trend of athletes being in movies started way back in the 70s with a few not-so-well-known athletes playing parts in some not-so-well-known films. The first time anyone saw a huge athlete in a film was in 1984’s Conan the Destroyer. The film saw basketball superstar Wilt Chamberlain playing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sidekick. It was a horrendous film and a very bad acting effort from the basketball star. The film bombed at the box office and effectively ended Chamberlain’s acting career. What was interesting about that film was the fact that it starred two athletes turned actors; Schwarzenegger was also a professional bodybuilder before he went into the movies. Over the years, there have been countless examples of athletes being featured in films.
After that horrible excuse for a film that ended Wilt’s acting career, other athletes were reluctant to enter into the industry. That all changed with Hulk Hogan and his slew of pathetic films. For some reason, someone must have told Hogan that it would be a great idea to star in a few films and profit from the huge fan base that he already enjoyed. After making c**p film after c**p film, it probably dawned on the wrestler to quit and return to the sport that made him famous. These days, some of the films he made, such as 'comedy' film Mr. Nanny and (get this) 'sci-fi' comedy Suburban Commando (which also featured a cameo by The Undertaker) would, as is reported by professional critics, make a grown man cry out of shame that something that bad was actually produced.
The trend has continued over the years with O.J. Simpson featuring in the Naked Gun series and Mike Tyson recently playing himself in The Hangover. The latest athlete to go into films is MMA fighter Roger Huerta, who is quitting the sport that made him famous to take up acting. This brings us to an interesting point: why do so many athletes insist on going into the film industry when they obviously cannot act? It seems the answer lies in the death of creativity in the film industry at the moment. There is hardly a film that gets made today that is not adapted from a book, an older movie or a television series. The golden trend of people writing quality scripts that then got turned into films is all but dead in Hollywood. So following on from this trend, directors and producers think that instead of hiring professional actors to play the roles, why not get athletes to do it instead and then they can bank on at least the athlete’s diehard fans coming to see the film. What ends up happening is that the athlete gives a very poor performance because he or she cannot act, and then the fans of the athlete do not come to see the film because they are embarrassed and people who do not know the athlete do not watch it either because it is a terrible film. The allure of earning a huge chunk of money in one go, that can sometimes be double an athlete’s salary, is too much to pass up.
There are some athletes who have bucked the trend and have become genuine actors in their own right. The above mentioned Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of them and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Jonson is another. The Rock did not seem to have a hard time making the switch from one form of entertainment, wrestling, to another. The reason he can get away with it is because he has charisma and a lot of screen presence, which sadly a lot of athletes do not have.
Due to the huge financial benefit that could be gained from working in even the worst movies out there, we will continue to see athletes starring in films for many years to come. Maybe some of them will hire agents and managers who can gently tell them that this industry is not for them and they should stick to sports. However, until that happens, we will have to endure horrendous film after horrendous film starring famous sports stars.
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