FILM · 1993 · USA
Last Action Hero
34 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (34)
- #001
Filming on Last Action Hero continued until one week before the film opened in theaters.
- #002
Charles Dance said in interviews that after it was reported he had won a role Alan Rickman had turned down over salary, he wore a T-shirt on set reading "I'm cheaper than Alan Rickman!" Tim Curry was also considered for the role of Benedict.
- #003
Arnold Schwarzenegger considered the screenplay one of the best he had ever read, particularly liking its mix of comedy, action, drama and satire. After the film's financial and critical failure, however, he said that despite the best efforts of the cast and crew, the attempt to appeal to both action and comedy fans may have resulted in a film that appealed to neither audience, and that it was also badly hurt by the strong competition from Jurassic Park (1993), which had opened a week earlier and dominated both the domestic and worldwide box offices.
- #004
The AC/DC song "Big Gun" was written specifically for Last Action Hero after Arnold Schwarzenegger personally approached the band and asked them to write a song for it.
- #005
Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted Last Action Hero to be rated PG-13 so it would reach a wider audience. As executive producer (for the first time), he approved the screenplay, the director, the cast, the studio financing, distribution, marketing, the budget, the public relations firm, the planning of a foreign film and more. Schwarzenegger enjoyed the added responsibility because it let him be involved in every stage of the production.
- #006
Sharon Stone's brief cameo as her Basic Instinct (1992) character was somewhat surprising, since she and Arnold Schwarzenegger had clashed on the set of Total Recall (1990). She was reluctant to take the role but did it as a favor to Schwarzenegger, who reminded her that Total Recall (1990) had helped her career.
- #007
When Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien) and Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger) arrive at L.A.P.D. headquarters, Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick are visible outside the front door as Catherine Tramell (from Basic Instinct (1992)) and the T-1000 (from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)), respectively. This marks Patrick's second cameo as the T-1000, after Wayne's World (1992).
- #008
At the start of Jack Slater IV, the words "A Franco Columbu film" appear on screen. Columbu is Arnold Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding friend and appeared with him in Pumping Iron (1977), Conan the Barbarian (1982), The Terminator (1984), The Running Man (1987) and Beretta's Island (1993).
- #009
While Jack and Danny are in the video store, we see boxes for Die Hard (1988), The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Medicine Man (1992), all also directed by John McTiernan. Among them, a box is visible for Christmas in Connecticut (1992), Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film as a director.
- #010
The original screenplay was titled "Extremely Violent" and was developed by Adam Leff and Zak Penn as a parody of Hollywood action films, especially those written by Shane Black (such as Lethal Weapon (1987) and The Last Boy Scout (1991)), with Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind for the lead. After Columbia bought the screenplay, the studio approached Arnold about the film independently. Arnold's choice came down to what is now titled "Last Action Hero" or "Sweet Tooth," a Columbia comedy to be directed by Ron Underwood (which was cancelled). Ironically, the screenplay was then heavily rewritten to stage the action scenes by Shane Black himself and David Arnott; Penn and Leff retained only story credit. William Goldman also did a one-million-dollar polish when Arnold made clear he would not begin shooting until Goldman added depth to the characters. Further uncredited screenplay changes were made by Carrie Fisher and Larry Ferguson (who briefly appears as himself).
- #011
While Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien) argues with Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger) about whether Benedict (Charles Dance) is dead after two chickens, he mentions the villain from Die Hard (1988) who returns after being presumed dead at the end of the film. Shortly afterward, a film score quotation from the Die Hard theme plays in the background. Both Die Hard and Last Action Hero were directed by John McTiernan and scored by Michael Kamen.
- #012
While Danny and Jack search the action section of the video store for a "Schwarzenegger" film, Danny is surprised and confused to see Sylvester Stallone on the poster for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), with Schwarzenegger's films apparently not existing. However, as Jack walks toward Danny to compliment Stallone's work, the VHS tape of Raw Deal (1986), one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's earlier films, is clearly visible on the shelf with Arnold prominently featured on the cover, along with other well-known Hollywood films of the time.
- #013
Danny tells Jack that "Jack Slater IV" was Meredith/Whitney's first film. It was also the first theatrical film for Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, who played Meredith/Whitney.
- #014
Shane Black rewrote most of the original screenplay, and his version appears to satirize many of the trademarks often found in his own screenplays for Lethal Weapon (1987) and The Last Boy Scout (1991): the opening scene takes place on Christmas Day; the film is a buddy action-comedy featuring two people in a love-hate relationship, one of them a detective inadvertently paired with someone who handles things less professionally (Jack Slater and Danny); part of the plot involves a kidnapping (Danny by the Ripper); Black's screenplays usually include a scene in which the hero distracts and disarms an armed man, but in this case it is Danny who is distracted and disarmed because he is too busy mocking John Practice for his mistakes. The explosion at the home of Jack Slater's ex-wife (who is also Whitney) at around 1:01:35 is even a reuse of the explosion at Shelly Marcone's house at the end of The Last Boy Scout.
- #015
John McTiernan said Last Action Hero began as a great Cinderella story with a nine-year-old boy and a very good screenplay: "[But then] this ridiculous hype machine got hold of it and buried it under the nonsense. It was so full of baggage. And then it came out unedited, almost assembled from camera. It was in theaters five or six weeks after we finished shooting. It was kamikaze, it was stupid, there was no good reason for it. And then it opens the week after Jurassic Park (1993) — my God! You'd need a snorkel to get to the depth of the bad judgment on this one." After its failure, McTiernan retreated to his home in Wyoming and took a break from his career, but two years later he made a strong comeback with Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995).
- #016
Filming lasted seven days, with Times Square in New York City closed from 3:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Arnold Schwarzenegger's seventy-five-foot balloon originally contained three sticks of dynamite. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Richard Brick, Commissioner of the New York City Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, and Gary Martin, President of Production at Columbia Pictures, agreed to replace the propeller with a badge.
- #017
Body count: eighty-three.
- #018
This was Art Carney's final film appearance, as Frank, Jack Slater's second-favorite cousin. Frank's last words were "I'm outta here." They were in fact the last words he spoke on screen.
- #019
Arnold Schwarzenegger considered Last Action Hero his most underrated film: "Last Action Hero was great; it wasn't fantastic, but it was underrated. Now more and more people are seeing it and saying, 'I love this movie.' I'm getting the residual checks, so I know it's true. It made money; that's always an important thing for me. Because it's show business, right?"
- #020
During filming, Arnold Schwarzenegger gave an interview about the film's set to Austrian music star Dagmar Koller for an Austrian TV series. After the interview, Schwarzenegger invited her to take a role in the film. She can be seen at the police station while Danny talks to her.
- #021
While trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the real world, Jack Slater mishears the name and calls himself "Arnold Braunschweiger." The first part of Arnold's real surname, "Schwarz," means "black" in German, while the first part of the mistaken name, "Braun," means "brown" in German. "Braunschweiger" is also a type of liver sausage made in the German city of Braunschweig (or Brunswick). In the German dub he calls himself "Arnold Beckenbauer" ("Pool Builder"), which adds further comedy since it is the name of one of Germany's most famous footballers.
- #022
The police station is the lobby of the administration building on the Sony Pictures lot. It was also used as the television network's lobby in The Running Man (1987), which likewise starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- #023
The film fell so far behind schedule that only one test screening was held, in May; it ran two hours and twenty minutes and bored audiences with much inaudible dialogue. Despite Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts, the studio refused to delay the release for fear of signaling that the film was in trouble. They released it largely unchanged and destroyed the review cards, but word-of-mouth proved disastrous and the film received only a "C+" CinemaScore. Co-writer Shane Black later described the finished film as "messy": "There was a movie in there trying to get out that I would have been happy with. But what they did was a jarring, random collection of scenes."
- #024
The film's disappointing box-office result meant that Arnold Schwarzenegger's fans failed to appreciate both their hero's effective self-parody and the action genre that made him great. Time, however, appears to have made audiences kinder toward the film and its self-aware brand of humor. Schwarzenegger's next film, True Lies (1994), which offered a subtler form of self-parody, was far more successful critically and financially; The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012) and The Expendables 3 (2014) featured Schwarzenegger and many 1980s action heroes parodying some of his famous trademarks. Indeed, characters becoming aware of their own film conventions became a major event in the Scream (1996) and Deadpool (2016) series, and Danny's observation that villains often make the mistake of laying out their entire plan in a long monologue was effectively reused in The Incredibles (2004).
- #025
This was the first film to use the 1993 Columbia Pictures logo, which remained in use as of 2026 despite cosmetic changes over the years. Whether intentionally or not, the opening title sequence of the film-within-the-film "Jack Slater IV" begins with the previous Columbia logo burning and breaking apart.
- #026
In 1993 Premiere Magazine published an article stating that nearly two hundred "gaffs" were intentional. "Gaffs" are the mistakes the industry calls errors; some of them are intentional and some are genuine mistakes. So in every scene there is a mistake deliberately placed to make the audience feel as if they are inside the film.
- #027
Nick (Robert Prosky) was originally going to be revealed as the Devil, but this was rejected by the producers. "Old Nick" means the devil in British slang.
- #028
It was one of director Stanley Kubrick's favorite films.
- #029
Danny's apartment in New York City is unit number 3D, indicating that he lives in the real world as opposed to the two-dimensional world of Jack's films.
- #030
Due to technical delays, this film beat Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) to become the first film released in SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound). With five front channels and two rear channels, it was also the first film to feature a 7.1-channel SDDS mix rather than the more common 5.1 SDDS. However, many theaters were not equipped for the new format, which caused technical problems and earned the system a new nickname: "Still Doesn't Do Shit." These troubles may have contributed to the film's negative perception, and it was ironically beaten at the box office by Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993).
- #031
In the closing credits, Nick begins telling Danny about the time he saw Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show as a child. Assuming he saw one of Bill's final performances, this would make him roughly 90 years old.
- #032
(About thirty-two minutes in) The bear in the upper right corner of the City of Los Angeles logo (the L.A.P.D. fountain) is replaced with a rhinoceros.
- #033
Along with a number of references to Lethal Weapon (1987), the Asian thug who dies because of an ice cream cone is played by Al Leong, who portrayed the henchman who tortures Riggs. Leong has a long career playing villainous henchmen in action-packed police films such as Running Scared (1986), Die Hard (1988) and Black Rain (1989), so his inclusion fits perfectly with Last Action Hero's parody of such films.
- #034
Sir Ian McKellen plays Death, a character from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957). In that film, Death was played by Bengt Ekerot. Although it seems far-fetched for Danny, a young boy, to recognize a character from a 1950s Swedish film, the film's poster can be seen hanging on the wall in Danny's apartment.
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