The “Popeye” forearms are still there and the biceps are still bulging, but Arnold Schwarzenegger appears no longer able to carry a Hollywood movie to box office success these days.
The 66-year old former California governor’s latest effort, “Sabotage” was a huge clunker at the box office this past weekend, producing just $5.3 million in ticket sales in its opening weekend.
That was good enough for just a No. 7 showing — and was the third straight opening weekend bomb for the actor who, in 23 films he has starred in, has helped sell more than $1.5 billion in US tickets, according to the-numbers.com.
But many of those hits, like “Terminator” and “True Lies,” came decades ago.
Not even an appearance by Schwarzenegger on WWE’s “Raw” show days before “Sabotage” opened — in front of plenty of young males, his target demographic — could spark interest.
It didn’t help, of course, that the $35 million film, from Open Road Films, got terrible reviews.
Kyle Smith, in The Post, said the film “doesn’t make a lot of sense on any level.”
“Eighty percent of the mayhem in the movie turns out to be based on a mistaken assumption,” Smith wrote.
“The film’s script is so bankrupt of ideas and lacking in common sense that I couldn’t even tell you if the movie wants us to hate them or not,” said a review at Film.com.
The two previous Schwarzenegger bombs were:
»“Escape Plan,” a $50 million budget film from Lionsgate, which opened Oct. 18, 2013 to a first weekend box office of just $9.9 million.
»“The Last Stand,” also from Lionsgate, with a budget of $45 million, had an opening weekend box office of $6.3 million.
Schwarzenegger’s last big hit was 2012’s “The Expendables 2,” which pulled in a worldwide box office of $305 million — with overseas tickets sales outpacing US sales by nearly 3-to-1.
Which brings us to a very important fact.
The “Expendables” cast — a veritable geezer-fest with Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren helping Arnold carry the day — is still very popular overseas.
This despite the fact that the overage ages of the cast’s six big stars is 62.5 years old — just five years younger than the average age of the Supreme Court justices.
The overseas popularity of the group probably explains why “Expendables 3” begins filming in a few months.
Hey, you never know.
The Trolling Stones continues to sell out arenas worldwide — and they average age of the four wrinkly rockers is 69.5 years old.
That makes Schwarzenegger and his pals practically kids.