9 Ways Plot of Arnold's Nixed Movie Mirrors His Scandal

'Cry Macho': A burly ex-star, an affair, a teen love child...
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted May 27, 2011 9:10 AM CDT
9 Ways Cry Macho, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Canceled Film, Weirdly Like His Own Life
Schwarzenegger speaks at the Israel 63rd Independence Day Celebration hosted by the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, Tuesday, May 10, 2011.   (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

Before the world learned he’d fathered a child with his mistress, Arnold Schwarzenegger was due to star in his first post-governor film: Cry Macho, a story that bears nine weird similarities to the Governator’s own recent tale, learns the Daily Beast after taking a look at the 1975 novel on which the film is based. First, Arnold’s character, cowboy Mike Milo, is a buff former star. Both character and man have defined their work in terms of sex, with Arnold comparing bodybuilding to intercourse and Milo using phallocentric cowboy-speak.

Both Milo’s ex-wife and Maria Shriver are onetime journalists. Milo engages in “petty adulteries” and finally a full-blown affair. But the central plot revolves around his quest, at his ex-boss’s request, to kidnap the son the boss fathered with a Mexican woman—a boy who’s now 11, around the same age as Schwarzenegger’s illegitimate son. When Milo finds the boy, he himself becomes involved with the mother. The boy later asks the former star: “Why can’t you be my father?” Click through for more odd similarities. (More Arnold Schwarzenegger stories.)

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