Arnold Schwarzenegger might not have won over fans as Mr Freeze, but the Batman and Robin star had a very lucrative payday thanks to the film.
The misjudged comic book movie earnt him an estimated $25 million (£20m), with lead actor George Clooney being paid substantially less than the action hero.
Schwarzenegger’s contract also included some pretty bizarre clauses, despite the former bodybuilder only being on set for 25 days.
Part of this was due to how poorly the movie was received by fans, with the DC Comics adaption only scoring 12 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes – eek!
Even now, the Ocean’s Eleven star struggles to watch the film and will change the channel whenever it comes on.
In an interview with Howard Stern, he admitted: “It’s so bad, it actually hurts to watch. You’ll be flipping the channels and it’ll just pop up and I’ll go ‘Oh, no, no no.’ …The truth of the matter is I was bad in it.”
However, this wasn’t the only downside.
Clooney has also revealed that Schwarzenegger was paid considerably more, despite being one of the film’s multiple villains, which included Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), Bane (Michael Reid MacKay) and Mr Freeze.
Whilst appearing on the Awards Chatter podcast, Clooney said: “Schwarzenegger was paid, I think, $25 million for that…was like 20 times more than I was paid for it.” (ouch!)
The former Governor of California had a significantly easy shoot, thanks to a bizarre clause in his contract.
Working for just 25 days, The Terminator actor earned a million dollars a day whilst working on Batman and Robin – taking home an estimated $25 million (£20m).
According to Screen Rant, he also had significantly shorter days and was even limited to a 12-hour day, thanks to a policy in his deal.
When you deduct time for his heavy prosthetics and make-up, this greatly limited the time Schwarzenegger actually spent in front of the camera.
Clooney even confirmed this during his interview with Howard Stern, saying that ‘they never even saw each other’ whilst filming.
Referring to Arnie’s big bad villain, Clooney said to Howard Stern: “It’s a big, monster machine, and I just sort of jumped in and did what they said.”
Perhaps the Fantastic Mr Fox actor just needs to work smarter, not harder.