“I Started Out Doing Movies as a Business”- Vince McMahon Once Influenced John Cena in Doing “Bad Movies” Before Hollywood Success

In the last 12 months, the stakes of John Cena in Hollywood as an actor have grown tremendously. He starred as Jakob Toretto, the little brother of Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto in F9 also joined the DCEU as the Peacemaker. The WWE legend has become a household name in the acting world. But once Cena recalled Vince McMahon’s influence on doing bad movies.

Last year, John Cena appeared in an interview with Chris Van Vliet to promote F9. He recalled how Vince McMahon’s WWE Studios approach made him sign “bad movies” prior to Hollywood success.

He said, “I started out doing movies as a business decision,” Cena said. “Steve Austin was originally supposed to do The Marine but he passed. Vince was like, ‘Hey I need you to go to Australia,’ this is like two weeks before shooting.

Cena added, “[Vince] explained that if we can bolster WWE studios, we will bolster WWE live event attendance. We can do larger building and be more widespread. I’m like, ‘This guy is onto something, let’s go do this thing so I can get back to the ring.'”

“That is the wrong approach to take but I continued to take that approach to the movies and in turn, I did a lot of bad movies,” he added.

The 16-time world champion started his acting career in WWE Studios’ produced The Marine. Cena’s initial film did well at the box office and got a good review. Furthermore, he also starred in 12 rounds, his second movie.

Cena kept doing the films that he got while he was AA-ing his opponents in the ring. However, his acting career’s turning point came in 2010 as per the former WWE Champion.

He said, “Fred was a cameo, Trainwreck was a cameo, Sisters, and I did a bunch of other small cameos where I stop looking at it as a vehicle and start to look at this as creative fun”

However, his role in Trainwreck was praised, and he started getting some big movie projects. He went along with it until, in 2019, he got an offer for F9.

John Cena called F9 ‘a second chance in Hollywood’

In the same interview, Cena shared the time he felt he won’t be able to make a Hollywood career. Moreover, he called the Fast and Furious movie a second chance for his acting career.

‘The Cenation Leader’ said, “I really had to change my perception and that came with tremendous failure. I thought after all those bad movies. I thought I was done.”

He added, “Fifteen years later I got a second chance at the movie business and we’re here talking about Fast 9 and it’s amazing man, but that comes through absolute fall-on-your-face failure.”

In 2006, Mr. McMahon saw The Texas Rattlesnake a big draw for WWE Studios to rise like he did during the Attitude Era. Nevertheless, Austin’s refusal to do this movie helped Cena ignite the flame for a career he started pursuing 15 years later.