Celebrities
Sinead Butler
Jun 08, 2023
content.jwplatform.com
Arnold Schwarzenegger has perhaps one of the most iconic lines in movie history - but it could have been different if the veteran actor had his way.
We all know the line "I'll be back" from his memorable role in The Terminator (1984), but the 75-year-old revealed in a new Netflix documentary series Arnold that he tried to get the line changed.
But it also turns out that "I'll be back," was not the original line in the script written by director James Cameron along with Gale Anne Hurd.
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The line that Schwarzenegger was supposed to say initially was "I'll come back."
"Sometime in the middle of the shoot, we're doing this police station scene. The line is, 'I'll come back.' It wasn't meant to be like a big moment at all," Cameron said.
"It was literally meant to be, on its face, 'No problem, I'll come back.' For some reason, Arnold didn't say, 'I'll come back.' I said, 'Well, just say "I'll be back." Keep it simple.'"
Every "I'll be back" from Terminator 1 to 6 (Compilation)www.youtube.com
However, Schwarzenegger wasn't exactly a fan and believed "I'll be back" sounded "funny," so instead he wanted the line to sound more "machine-like" and lobbied for "I will be back."
Though Cameron wasn't exactly impressed with Schwarzenegger's suggestion.
"'And he says, 'Are you the writer?'" Schwarzenegger recalled Cameron saying. "And I said, 'No,' and he said, 'Well, don't tell me how to f****** write.'"
In the end, Schwarzenegger admitted that Cameron's line was "absolutely right."
"It became the most quoted movie line, I think, in the history of motion pictures. So this just shows to you who was right and who was wrong," the actor added.
Given that “I’ll be back" comes in at number 37 on the American Film Institute’s list of “100 Greatest Movie Quotes Of All Time" safe to say it was the right call.
Arnold, the three-part documentary series is now available to stream on Netflix.
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