Entertainment

What Won't Arnold Crush?

by Anna Klassen

He crushed a grand piano, he ran over a massive roll of bubble wrap, and he obliterated a DVD copy of Million Dollar Baby. So why is The Governator destroying objects with the brute force of his personal tank? For charity of course. In a new video, Arnold Schwarzenegger destroys a multitude of objects to support the charity After-School All-Stars. Because at $10 a pop, you can enter to win a trip to Los Angeles to crush more things with Arnold in his tank. The website clarifies: "You and a friend will get to ride shotgun with Arnold in his M47 Patton tank. Yes, Arnold has a tank. Yes, this is your chance to ride in it. Not only that, but you'll also get to use the tank to crush something. And if you're into working out, you can lift together on it too. There's a high probability that this will be the best day of your life. Cigars included."

Well hot diggity dog, sounds like a sweet deal. We got a hold of Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the director behind Arnold's epic crushing video (and last summer's coming-of-age comedic masterpiece The Kings of Summer) to hear firsthand what working with Terminator star is really like.

"He's an icon. It was a real pleasure. We were honestly unsure if he was going to go for some of the weirder things in the script," Vogt-Roberts said. "He's such a naturally funny guy that he sold it all so well. Most of the crew donated their time, labor and gear on the job just to get the chance to watch Arnold crush things in his tank. You can tell how genuinely passionate he is about his charity work and it was just an honor to be able to collaborate with him."

Vogt-Roberts worked with his Kings of Summer writer — Chris Galletta, a self-proclaimed Schwarzenegger fan — on the script. "Him and I worked on the idea of creating something with an amped up Schwarzenegger bravado and filled with self references," Vogt-Roberts said. "It's not often you get to write words for Schwarzenegger so we just wrote things we thought would be ridiculous for him to say... Like even saying the name check a 'Microsoft Zune' or settling our personal vendetta against the movie Million Dollar Baby. We just wanted to pay homage to the man who defined our childhood."

When it came to choosing objects to crush, Vogt-Roberts was insistent on attempting to crush a "full sized above-ground-pool filled with green jello." Unfortunately, that was just too much jello to afford for the video's budget, so they settled on a fiberglass Easter egg filled with orange jello.

"It's really dorky and it certainly wasn't the coolest in terms of spectacle but we had a model replica tank made with 'no fate' written on the side as a nod to Terminator 2," Vogt-Roberts said of his favorite thing to crush.

Watch Schwarzenegger destroy these objects and more in the director's cut of Will it Crush?: