This Arnold Schwarzenegger Movie Is the First Film to Ever Cost $100M
The Big Picture
- True Lies was the first film to ever cost $100 million, setting a new standard for blockbuster budgets in 1994.
- The film combines comedy and action, with over-the-top scenarios and absurdity that showcase Arnold Schwarzenegger's comedic prowess.
- Jamie Lee Curtis is equally credited as a star in the film, with Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledging her essential role and fighting for her name to appear above the title alongside his.
With budget numbers in the nine-digit range far from uncommon in today’s blockbuster-oriented theatrical landscape, it’s time to look back on the first film to reach that colossal milestone, with visionary director and money-maker James Cameron’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis-starring True Lies holding the Guinness World Record for being the first film to ever cost $100M. While nowadays, audiences can expect several features in the $100M+ range within a single year, it’s fascinating to see just what $100M afforded in 1994 before James Cameron had even broken the billion-dollar box office ceiling with 1997’s Titanic.
In a world where VFX and computer-generated imagery can be responsible for the creation of entire worlds onscreen, it’s charming to witness the economic equivalent might be channeled into a film with such a wacky Mr. and Mrs. Smith-like premise. True Lies spans almost as many genres as it does tens of millions of dollars, following Omega Sector secret agent Harry Tasker (who else but Schwarzenegger) as his wife Helen (Curtis), unknowing of her husband’s double life, suffers through a midlife crisis, craving a more adventurous lifestyle. Harry thus orchestrates a staged spy mission to allow Helen the fantasy of living out her wildest dreams in a deceptive manner that’s way too toxically manipulative to ever fly today, even if it leads to some hilarious and intriguing espionage shenanigans. The staged mission quickly goes off the rails when the couple is kidnapped by Crimson Jihad, a terrorist organization intent on smuggling nuclear warheads in an attempt to coerce the United States into removing their troops from the Persian Gulf. It’s a more solid motivation for a villain than is typically seen in an action film of the era, even if its characterization of the Middle Eastern population proved controversial.
True Lies
RActionThrillerComedyRomance
Secretly a spy but thought by his family to be a dull salesman, Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is tracking down nuclear missiles in the possession of Islamic jihadist Aziz (Art Malik). Harry's mission is complicated when he realizes his neglected wife, Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), is contemplating an affair with Simon (Bill Paxton), a used-car salesman who claims he's a spy. When Aziz kidnaps Harry and Helen, the secret agent must save the world and patch up his marriage at the same time.
‘True Lies’ Is Equal Parts Comedy and Action Movie
Making what was contemporaneously considered the most expensive movie of all time meant that four-quadrant appeal (aka appealing to audiences young and old, male and female) wasn’t just a preference, but a necessity. In order to capture the audience that would turn this film into a hefty profit, True Lies was going to have to appeal beyond the male majority that comprised Schwarzenegger’s previous hits Commando or Conan the Barbarian. To do that, the first half of True Lies functions mostly as a comedy, playing off its hilarious premise with cartoonish charm. Where the comedy of Mr. and Mrs. Smith is mostly rooted in the couple’s sex appeal, True Lies opts for the most over-the-top scenarios imaginable, consistently increasing in ludicrous escalation not just scene-by-scene, but shot-by-shot. Take the opening, for example, in which Harry tangos with an art dealer suspected of affiliation with Crimson Jihad only to be chased down by faceless men on snowmobiles, or just barely 20 minutes later when he’s chasing antagonist Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) through the city on horseback.
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There was action both in the movie and behind the scenes.
The film’s comedy within its action scenes lies in its absurdity, with James Cameron working in full recognition of Schwarzenegger's comedic chops and knowledge of just how hilarious the simple image of Schwarzenegger riding a horse in a three-piece suit is. Leaning firmly into its screwball roots, True Lies' screenplay is actually based on a 1991 French spy comedy, La Totale!, whose director Claude Zidi (who won the César Award for Best Director for his corrupt cop comedy My New Partner) routinely mines comedy from authority figures abusing their power. Harry goes on to enforce his abilities in multiple unjust manners, whether it’s deceiving his wife by sending her on a fake spy mission, or brutally intimidating her suspected paramour in a way that serves to comment on the petty manners in which ridiculously powerful men attempt to assert control over their lives.
‘True Lies’ Features Some of James Cameron’s Best Action Movie Work
But beyond the comedy, for a director who gave us the first two Terminator and Avatar films, James Cameron outdoes himself with the action on display in True Lies. There’s a bathroom fight on par with that of Mission: Impossible - Fallout, but the real juice lies in the film’s three climaxes (yes, three climaxes), all of which fall right after one another in one of the most stunning displays of practical effects ever witnessed. First, after being administered a truth serum, forcing him to come clean to Helen about his double life as a spy, Helen and Harry miraculously escape in a scene that climaxes with a machine gun chaotically firing off as it bounces down a flight of stairs, Battleship Potemkin style. That leads to a chase across the partially destroyed Seven Mile Bridge, only for Henry to save Helen from a runaway limo, ending on an image of Schwarzenegger and Curtis kissing against the backdrop of a mushroom cloud formed from a nuclear explosion. And no, that’s not the ending! Henry still has a daughter to save, captured by the leader of Crimson Jihad, who’s dispatched after he finds himself accidentally strapped to a missile equipped onto the plane Henry pilots. Arnie’s final line before launching it? “You’re fired.” Cinema.
Jamie Lee Curtis Is Just as Much 'True Lies' Star as Schwarzenegger
CloseWhen, in 2023, Jamie Lee Curtis garnered an enormous amount of buzz for her role in the Oscars juggernaut Everything, Everywhere All At Once, Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped in front of microphones to voice his admiration for the legendary actor with one caveat. Looking online at “the wonderful things [people] are saying about her,” Schwarzenegger complained that there’s always one thing he sees that “really pisses [him] off,” and that’s when people label her as a supporting actress in True Lies. Schwarzenegger goes on to insist that Curtis wasn’t supporting, but a star of equal status to his own. Curtis also claimed that it was Schwarzenegger who fought for her name to appear above the title alongside his for the official theatrical poster of the film, expressing her mutual admiration for him in allowing her to be up there with “a man whose life has been defined by that genre.” Though it wasn’t mandatory due to the lack of any billing clause in Curtis’ contract, Schwarzenegger and Cameron viewed Curtis as essential to the success of the film, proving correct in her necessity for delivering that perfect blend of action spectacle and the goofball repartee between its two leads.
While Schwarzenegger is no stranger to big-budget projects (including his 2024 Super Bowl-State Farm ad extravaganza), no other endeavor holds the esteemed spot of the first $100 million movie. True Lies may have been the first film to ever cost $100M, but five minutes into the film, its audience knew that they were intent on spending every one of those dollars wisely. Whether a spy film, a comedy, a romance, or an action extravaganza, the film set the stage for countless spy comedies to come. However, in spite of that, none of those millions would mean anything if not for the chemistry of these two unlikely leads — something its toe-tapping, tango-dancing finale works in full reverence of.
True Lies is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
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