Arnold Schwarzenegger Felt Like He’d Lost $25M On This 1990 High-Grossing Comedy

Summary:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of Hollywood’s most prominent actors with a lot of high-grossing films in his collection, but one movie in particular brought him some personal disappointment when it didn’t do that well in the box office.
• Though the film eventually grossed more than $200 million, Schwarzenegger expected it to get at least $25 million more.
• The movie’s impressive run in the theaters as it was couldn’t be a better compliment given its controversial plot.

Arnold Schwarzenegger may still be Hollywood’s favorite after decades of successful career and a dozen of films that made it to more than $100 million in the box office, but even the famous Terminator sometimes gets delusional with the high hopes.

Back in the 80s and 90s the actor had some really disappointing projects, but one particular movie’s performance hit him especially hard — mostly in terms of money.

Several years ago in one of his interviews Schwarzenegger revealed that he’d personally expected Kindergarten Cop, which was released in 1990, to do much better in the box office — at least $25 million better.

The film was indeed a great expectation for both director Ivan Reitman and leading actor, but eventually fell into the critics’ disgrace due to its controversial storyline.

Kindergarten Cop follows a tough detective John Kimble who, after several failed attempts to send drug dealer Cullen Crisp to jail, takes much more drastic measures and gets a job as a substitute kindergarten teacher — something that may help him to find Crisp’s ex-wife who escaped with their common child and a million dollars.

Trying hard not to arouse any suspicion, Kimble now has to take a class full of noisy five-year-olds under his control.

Though the film had a potential to repeat the stunning success Reitman and Schwarzenegger’s previous collaboration, the 1988 comedy Twins, it eventually didn’t live up to the crew’s expectations, though still did quite well in the box office having grossed more than $200 million worldwide.

Someone else may say that there’s nothing to be sad about here, but Schwarzenegger wouldn’t agree — according to the actor, the movie could’ve grossed at least $25 million more, thus surpassing Twins.

Such a comparison in this case sounds a little weird given that there are only the director and the leading actor that both films have in common. After all, it was Kindergarten Cop that confused critics with its mix of children and violence thus making the film end up with only 54% on Rotten Tomatoes.