Professional wrestling has been a part of the entertainment
world for decades. Muscular men and
big-chested women roll around in tight and minimal clothing in front of large
audiences. The audiences cheer for those
that they love, and jeer at those that they hate. There are stars, and there are those who will
never see the spotlight. Wrestling is
like many sports, as well as being like the entertainment industry. Wrestling is wrestling.
The thing is, that isn’t enough for the people involved in
wrestling. There needs to be more than
just the glory of blood, sweat, and tears.
There needs to be glitz. There
needs to be glam. This is why we see so
many wrestlers break out of their roles in order to try out acting in
television and film. Hulk Hogan, Steve
Austin, Roddy Piper, Dwayne Johnson. All
of these guys went from wrestling to film acting. Many more did as well. But it wasn’t until recently that wrestling
became a major player in movies.
In 2002, the World Wrestling Federation got into the studio
game by starting WWF Films. Later that
year, it would change to WWE Studios, due to the name change from World Wrestling
Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment.
The studio was created to help make feature films to star the wrestlers
in the company. They co-produced a few
movies in the beginning to help make Dwayne Johnson and Steve Austin stars in
the movie world. 2006 would see WWE
studios start producing scripted films on their own, and it began with a bang.
The first scripted movie that they produced on their own
would be a horror flick called See No Evil.
That’s not the most important movie they released that year,
though. The other movie that WWE Studios
released in 2006 was The Marine, and it gave them their first franchise.
Though a franchise, The Marine has an entirely different
cast in each installment. The first film
starred wrestler John Cena as the titular Marine. When discharged from the military, the
character goes home only to have to save his abducted wife with his Marine
skills. The second film stars Ted
DiBiase Jr. who is a Marine on vacation with his wife. When the resort that they are at is attacked
by terrorists, he must use his Marine skills to save the hostages. In The Marine 3: Homefront, Mike Mizanin
plays a Marine who comes home, only to have his sister get abducted by a team
of bank robbers. He must use his Marine
skills to get his sister and her boyfriend away from the bad guys.
This franchise has been what I consider to be the backbone
of the WWE Films filmography. Each movie
features a different wrestler in a starring role. Each movie is an action movie that can
showcase the physicality of the wrestlers.
Plus, until the 12 Rounds sequel was released earlier this month, it was
the only franchise in the filmography.
The quality might be questionable at times, but they are a consistent
group of movies within the studio that do exactly what needs to be done.
WWE Studios has had many movies after the first Marine
movie, as while as around the times when the sequels were released
direct-to-video, but none of them have as much meaning to WWE Studios as The
Marine. Well, none until The Call, which
has become the highest grossing theatrically released movie that they have
solely produced. The Marine helped to
kickstart the studio. The sequels,
though not theatrically released, showed that they could improve upon the
formula and create movies of better quality than the original.
WWE Studios has a bright future ahead of them if they keep
doing what they are doing. With the
financial success of The Call, and the surprisingly good quality of their
direct-to-video sequels to The Marine, they have the potential to make some
classic films. If only they can figure
out what is keeping them from reaching that level. WWE Studios has made movies that people might
not consider good, but with a little work, they can get there, as well as
surpass everyone’s expectations. I am
looking forward to the future of WWE Studios.
There are some notes to make before I am done:
- If you have any suggestions for future movies in the Sunday “Bad” Movie posts, feel free to comment below, or tell me on Twitter.
- The Marine featured an actor named Jeff Chase who was also in Freelancers.
- The Marine 2 was directed by Roel Reine, who also directed Death Race 2 and Death Race: Inferno.
- The Marine 3: Homefront had Marcelo Tubert doing some work on it. He was in Alex Cross.
- Robert Coleby appeared in The Marine and The Marine 2. He is the only actor to appear in multiple movies within the franchise.
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