john cena

WWE wrestling SuperStar John Cena makes his motion picture debut in the rugged action thriller THE MARINE. Cena is John Triton, a heroic Marine who returns home after being discharged – against his will – from the war in Iraq. Stateside, he finds himself back in action, when his wife (Kelly Carlson) is kidnapped by a murderous gang led by the merciless Rome (Robert Patrick). With everything on the line, the Marine will stop at nothing to carry out his toughest and most important mission.

STARRING: John Cena, Kelly Carlson, Jeff Chase, Jon Bennett, Abigail Bianca, Troy Brenna, Ashley Lyons, Anthony Ray Parker, Robert Patrick, Drew Powell, Kelly Steve

"The Marine"
Behind The Scenes

MAKING “THE MARINE”….
IN THE WORDS OF THE FILMMAKERS

JOHN CENA: FROM RING TO SCREEN

John Cena: “My character in THE MARINE, John Triton, fights for his country – and loves doing so. He has a good wife, and he’s really focused on family. He’s a down-to-earth, grounded guy.”

Cena: “How did I get the role? That’s like asking me how I became a professional wrestler. I think it is the dream of a lot of people to be both; it certainly was mine! There was really no transition from wrestling to motion pictures. It’s not a move up – they’re both on the same level. My goal is to keep wrestling, until I can no longer handle it physically. I just want to add movies and acting into the mix.”

Cena: “In THE MARINE, I’m not as over-the-top as I am in the ring, where I’m usually the one talking trash and making fun of my opponents. In the film, I have to be soft-spoken – a walk-softly-and-carry-a-big-stick kind of guy.”

Cena: “I missed the roar of the [wrestling] crowd while I was filming, and I can’t wait to get back to that. Filming is a whole different experience from wrestling.”

Cena: “Robert Patrick plays the lead bad guy. He gets to be the witty character – the guy who’s a snazzy dresser and shoots first and asks questions later.”

Cena: “Kelly Carlson plays my wife, a character very different than her role on ‘Nip/Tuck.’ In our film, she’s very clean-cut and wholesome – but still very sexy.”

Cena: “Kelly [Carlson] can fight. She and Abigail Bianca, who plays the villainous Angela, have a fight sequence in the film, where they went at it WWE style! I think [the WWE wrestlers] The Divas would be proud of their work. Kelly and Abigail were really in [their fight scene] with each other. They made sure each kick and punch meant something. When I heard that they accidentally really connected [blows] by mistake, I patted them on the shoulder and said, ‘Welcome to the WWE.’”

Cena: “I wanted audiences [seeing THE MARINE] to get their money’s worth. You’re going to see some great action – and you’re going to believe in John Triton.”

ROBERT PATRICK: RETURN TO VILLAINY

Robert Patrick: [In THE MARINE] I play Rome, a jewel thief. He’s psychotic and cold-blooded, but he has a wicked sense of humor. He’s a charismatic bad guy. It’s one of those fun characters where I can do anything I want and have a lot of fun with him. You’re in on the joke with the audience; the hope is they like you being bad, and revel in your ‘badness.’”

Patrick: “I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anybody as powerfully built as John Cena. Arnold [Schwarzenegger] in ‘Terminator 2’ was big – but John’s enormous. I’m sure he’s not an easy guy to throw around the [wrestling] ring.”

Patrick: “John Cena should be the next Terminator. I told John he should go ahead and take that job. He’d be perfect. I think the Governor is too busy to do it, isn’t he?”

Patrick: “There are a lot of big action sequences in this movie. There’s an explosion every few minutes! And there are some things that reminded me of working on ‘Terminator 2’, like missiles being fired into cars. I haven’t done a film like this in a long time, so it’s fun to experience this kind of relentless action, again.”

Kelly Carlson: “One of the reasons I accepted the part was to be part of an action film. I love doing fight scenes. I love being very active and working out. We were constantly doing stunts in THE MARINE. So the film fulfilled that ‘action’ side of me that I haven’t experienced in other roles. During shooting, the cast and crew called me ‘Mini-Champ.’ I’m tiny, but I can pack a punch!”

Carlson: “I have a long fight in the film with Abigail Bianca, who plays one of my abductors. We stumbled, punched, flipped, kicked each other – and she hit me in the face with a gun! Abigail is very physical – she’s petite, but she held her own in our fight scene. Abigail and I should go on tour with John Cena and the WWE – as a pre-show, of course [laughs].

Carlson: “Another draw to do THE MARINE was that the character, Kate Triton, is sweet and loving, and she comes from an honest place. I don’t get to play that very often. I usually play a femme fatale in movies and on TV. On the series ‘Nip/Tuck,’ my character is sort of sugar and vinegar. She can be very vindictive. And Kate [in THE MARINE] is the opposite of that – she’s a very loving person.”

Carlson: “Shooting in the swamp was difficult: there were always a lot of spiders and crocodiles. We worked in water up to our waists. It freaked me out at first, but I got used to it.”

JOHN BONITO: A NEW ACTION FILM MAESTRO

John Bonito: “The WWE really wanted to put its mark on feature films. They made it clear: Let’s go for the jugular with THE MARINE. I was excited to be a part of that.”

Bonito: “Explosions? Let’s just say that on set we had a running joke: If it’s getting built, it’s getting blown-up.”

Bonito: “THE MARINE is a fastball down the middle – a rock ‘em, sock ‘em action thriller.”

Bonito: “I was not familiar with John Cena’s work as a wrestler, but after working with him on THE MARINE, I was very impressed with his work ethic – every day he came to play. He was a consummate professional.”

Bonito: “John Cena did many of his own stunts: He jumped cars, smashed into cars, jumped out of burning buildings. He was blown up, shot at, stabbed, punched and kicked. He also has a natural charisma; the camera loves him.”

Bonito: “Robert Patrick does a lot of serious, dramatic roles, but he has a great sense of humor, and that really comes across in the film.”

Bonito: “Kelly Carlson was a real trooper: she gets pushed around, dragged, thrown, blow up – and she always wanted to do the big action scenes herself.”

JOEL SIMON: A NEW ERA FOR THE WWE

Joel Simon: “Vince and Linda McMahon told me what they were looking for in a film company. They wanted to make a full commitment to the motion picture business. Most of all, we all wanted to fulfill the expectations of the WWE fans. We have this wonderful audience that watches our programming every week. Fulfilling their expectations for WWE funded movies was what most excited me.”

Simon: “When I [co-produced] ‘X-Men,’ it took six years to get the film off the ground. It took ‘Wild, Wild West’ [on which Simon was an executive producer] five years in development. That’s just the pace of Hollywood. Vince McMahon’s pace is very simple: He wakes up on Monday morning with an idea, and that idea is on TV the same night.”

Simon: “The first thing we [WWE’s Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon and Simon] decided was that we’re never going to make films about wrestlers. We are not going to be in the wrestling-film business because that’s what we do in our day jobs.”

ABOUT THE WWE

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) finances the development of its films, culled from pitches, original screenplays, books and articles. WWE Films also supervises production and produces all of their in house projects where the goal is not to be a development company, but to make movies, both for theatrical release and the direct to video market.

WWE’s investment in its film products will include using all its various media platforms and marketing expertise to promote these films to the public. “There is a synergy within WWE that will allow us to put our entire marketing and media infrastructure behind the opening of a WWE movie,” says Joel Simon. “We can promote our movies within our television programming, at our more than 325 live events a year, on the Internet, and in our magazine, WWE, as well as in our many home video and DVD offerings to expose our movies to the huge global WWE audience.”