The Marine (2006), The Marine 2 (2009), The Marine 3: Homefront (2013), and WWE Films

Professional wrestling has been a part of the entertainment world for decades.  Muscular men and big-chested women roll around in tight and minimal clothing in front of large audiences.  The audiences cheer for those that they love, and jeer at those that they hate.  There are stars, and there are those who will never see the spotlight.  Wrestling is like many sports, as well as being like the entertainment industry.  Wrestling is wrestling.

The thing is, that isn’t enough for the people involved in wrestling.  There needs to be more than just the glory of blood, sweat, and tears.  There needs to be glitz.  There needs to be glam.  This is why we see so many wrestlers break out of their roles in order to try out acting in television and film.  Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, Roddy Piper, Dwayne Johnson.  All of these guys went from wrestling to film acting.  Many more did as well.  But it wasn’t until recently that wrestling became a major player in movies.

In 2002, the World Wrestling Federation got into the studio game by starting WWF Films.  Later that year, it would change to WWE Studios, due to the name change from World Wrestling Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment.  The studio was created to help make feature films to star the wrestlers in the company.  They co-produced a few movies in the beginning to help make Dwayne Johnson and Steve Austin stars in the movie world.  2006 would see WWE studios start producing scripted films on their own, and it began with a bang.

The first scripted movie that they produced on their own would be a horror flick called See No Evil.  That’s not the most important movie they released that year, though.  The other movie that WWE Studios released in 2006 was The Marine, and it gave them their first franchise.

Though a franchise, The Marine has an entirely different cast in each installment.  The first film starred wrestler John Cena as the titular Marine.  When discharged from the military, the character goes home only to have to save his abducted wife with his Marine skills.  The second film stars Ted DiBiase Jr. who is a Marine on vacation with his wife.  When the resort that they are at is attacked by terrorists, he must use his Marine skills to save the hostages.  In The Marine 3: Homefront, Mike Mizanin plays a Marine who comes home, only to have his sister get abducted by a team of bank robbers.  He must use his Marine skills to get his sister and her boyfriend away from the bad guys.

This franchise has been what I consider to be the backbone of the WWE Films filmography.  Each movie features a different wrestler in a starring role.  Each movie is an action movie that can showcase the physicality of the wrestlers.  Plus, until the 12 Rounds sequel was released earlier this month, it was the only franchise in the filmography.  The quality might be questionable at times, but they are a consistent group of movies within the studio that do exactly what needs to be done.

WWE Studios has had many movies after the first Marine movie, as while as around the times when the sequels were released direct-to-video, but none of them have as much meaning to WWE Studios as The Marine.  Well, none until The Call, which has become the highest grossing theatrically released movie that they have solely produced.  The Marine helped to kickstart the studio.  The sequels, though not theatrically released, showed that they could improve upon the formula and create movies of better quality than the original.

WWE Studios has a bright future ahead of them if they keep doing what they are doing.  With the financial success of The Call, and the surprisingly good quality of their direct-to-video sequels to The Marine, they have the potential to make some classic films.  If only they can figure out what is keeping them from reaching that level.  WWE Studios has made movies that people might not consider good, but with a little work, they can get there, as well as surpass everyone’s expectations.  I am looking forward to the future of WWE Studios.

There are some notes to make before I am done:

• If you have any suggestions for future movies in the Sunday “Bad” Movie posts, feel free to comment below, or tell me on Twitter.
• The Marine featured an actor named Jeff Chase who was also in Freelancers.
• The Marine 2 was directed by Roel Reine, who also directed Death Race 2 and Death Race: Inferno.
• The Marine 3: Homefront had Marcelo Tubert doing some work on it.  He was in Alex Cross.
• Robert Coleby appeared in The Marine and The Marine 2.  He is the only actor to appear in multiple movies within the franchise.