John Cena is undoubtedly one of the most prominent people due to his status as an internationally renowned professional wrestler. In addition to this, he is admired for his accomplishments as a notable actor in several films, particularly in recent years. Since fans have been following the superstar for the past more than 20 years, his star power has only gotten stronger.
That is quite remarkable. The former rapper is endearing, charismatic, funny, and dedicated to his craft, so it is not surprising that he has attained such fame.
Although Cena’s professional accomplishments are well known, little is known about his early years, when he first began to struggle in the entertainment business. There are some facts about his life that you might or might not be aware of.
For instance, he was not originally cast in The Marine, the film in which he had his first official lead role.
An Interesting Twist In John Cena’s First Lead Role Film
John Cena’s first feature-length film, The Marine, was produced by WWE Studios. This was the first entry in the The Marine series, which was released in 2006. The plot of the film was purely straightforward.
The lead actor, who played John Triton, had to fight a large group of opponents in order to find his wife, who had been kidnapped by diamond thieves. Even though the movie received mixed reviews from critics, the actor, whose estimated net worth is $80 million, learned a lot from it.
Cena acknowledged in a GQ interview that when The Marine was first suggested to him, he was not ready for it.
In reality, Vince McMahon approached the 12 Rounds actor and just told him that he was going to Australia to film The Marine and would be leaving in a few days. Although Cena had no idea how to act, he simply followed McMahon’s orders. His focus at the time was on wrestling, so he did not even want to act in the movie. He reflected:
“If I’m gonna do action, why am I doing it here? Why don’t I do it in front of 15,000 people? At the time, I didn’t realize what I was doing. I never realized I was becoming a more seasoned professional, I never realized the nuggets of wisdom I would take from my peers, I never realized what the value of that opportunity was and I chalked that one up to being young and ambitious, just not too wise.”
When asked about his filming experience, the 46-year-old actor stated:
“I enjoyed the business plan, I didn’t enjoy the experience”.
The Marine’s Alternate Reality: Stone Cold vs. John Cena
The script for the 2006 action John Bonito film The Marine originally called for none other than Al Pacino to portray the antagonist alongside the renowned Steve Austin, better known by his ring name ‘Stone Cold’. The latter was destined to be the hero ‘John Triton’, which eventually was later portrayed by John Cena.
Stone Cold Steve Austin once talked with Slash Film about his reasons for rejecting the movie:
“And the first one that I was going to was going to be The Marine. I got the script to The Marine, and I didn’t really like it too much, so I passed. But The Condemned seemed like a cool story, cool concept, a lot of it outdoors, and just seemed like, I don’t know, for some reason it grabbed me. It was something I saw myself doing, and people would expect me to be in, and it seemed like the right thing to do. If you compare The Marine to The Condemned, this is a way better movie. It is.”
Pacino, on the other hand, turned down the role of Rome due to the low pay on offer. Ray Liotta was a candidate for the role after the Author! Author! actor declined it. However, Robert Patrick ultimately won the role.
Despite receiving subpar reviews, the $15 million film was still able to recoup some of its costs. The Marine made about $22 million in box office revenue and another $27 million from DVD sales.
The next movie starring Cena will be an action comedy, Freelance, which will be helmed by Pierre Morel and written by Jacob Lentz.
The Marine is currently streaming on Hulu.
Source- SlashFilm
