Who 'Sabotaged' Arnold?: Latest Film Bombs

 Not even. Sure, his new flick was so dwarfed by the "Noah" marketing blitz that you can be forgiven if you didn't know there was a new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie this weekend. But there was, and "Sabotage," which cost an estimated $35 million to make, earned a mere $5.3 million over the weekend.

 "Arnold has been a box-office bust in the U.S. ever since he came back from his political tour of duty, and even before that his star was steadily falling," says Exhibitor Relations senior box-office analyst Jeff Bock. "'Sabotage' is Arnie's worst debut of his career, when adjusted for inflation. Ouch."

His age isn't helping him either.

"At nearly 70, he's not quite believable as the Action Jackson he once was," Bock says. "Plus, Liam Neeson is getting all the scripts that are actually good, whereas Arnie gets the Z-grade scripts nowadays."

Then again, if you suspect that all translates into retirement for Schwarzenegger, think again. The world doesn't end at the Eastern seaboard — a lucky fact of geography for the Styrian Oak.

"The big money for Arnold is made back on DVD sales overseas," says casting director Bonnie Gillespie, author of "Self-Management for Actors." "He's untouchable."

In fact, Arnie is not only surviving via worldwide sales; he's thriving. His Ulmer Scale rating? A whopping 98, which means that film financiers stand a 98 percent chance of recouping their investment in worldwide upfront sales before a single frame of a movie is even shot...More