Legendary screenwriter Steven E de Souza recently spoke to Radio Times to discuss his iconic legacy and his classic collaboration with Arnold Schwarzenegger for Commando. Apparently, the film originally planned for a longer, more explosive ending, but the budget ran out during production. In a tense battle to come up with a functioning ending, de Souza joked that Sylvester Stallone was to blame for the budget disaster, as the film had to be rewritten to compete with Rambo 2 at the box office.
In a film so packed with explosive action and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic one-liners, it’s hard to imagine how the writers planned to make the film any bigger. According to de Souza, the final episode of Commando was originally intended to be a speedboat chase through booby-trapped waters, with enough pyrotechnics and exploding flames that if anything went wrong, the entire production could be sent back to the Stone Age.
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Steven E de Souza, who is credited with writing some of the best action thrillers in cinema history, including Die Hard, Judge Dredd, and Beverly Hills Cop 3, claims that his initial ending didn’t require all these flashy pyrotechnics until director Mark L. Lester had seen an early cut of Rambo 2.
Afterward, he began panicking that the film was too action-packed and would blow Commando out of the water, so to speak. Producers knew from the beginning that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stallone would be compared to one another after these films debuted,
with the two muscle-bound action stars each going down in film history, and didn’t want to risk Commando falling flat for lack of action.
Of course, one of the central differences between the careers of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger is that Stallone’s films often focused on gritty realism and intense drama, whereas the action in Schwarzenegger’s films often aimed to go over the top in a highly absurd and comedic fashion.
De Souza and Schwarzenegger acknowledged this fact during pre-production, but Lester still felt that the film would suffer if it had to compete directly with the tense ending of Rambo 2.
After Mark L. Lester blew the budget for the boat scene, de Souza was tasked with rewriting the ending in 24 hours, with almost no financial resources. As a result, the final scene takes place in a basement that de Souza claims is an actual basement on the Fox studio lot.
The film’s climax, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger rips open the stomach of his nemesis Bennett by impaling him with a steam pipe, was an instant hit with audiences, although the scene was originally intended as a cheap workaround for a budget failure.
The rest is history. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lucrative film career landed him the governorship of California, putting his action hero career on hold until recently when he starred in the Netflix film FUBAR as a former CIA operative.
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A special screening of Commando will take place on Sunday, June 25 at the upcoming London Action Festival, where Steven E de Souza will be on hand to answer fan questions. If you’re concerned about the original ending or the filmmaking process, be sure to get your ticket before it’s too late, or you might blow off some steam too.