WWE Studios was made in 2002 and was seen as a natural extension of the entertainment business that already featured the weekly Raw and SmackDown television programs. In January 2005, WWE announced their first movie projects: The Condemned starring Steve Austin, The Marine starring John Cena, and Goodnight — later retitled to See No Evil — starring Kane.

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The Old WWE Studios Was Seen As A Joke

For years, WWE Studios was seen as a joke as it seemed like they had no idea what they were actually doing. Who was the audience of WWE-produced films? Was any WWE fan really crying out to see Triple H as an ex-con chaperoning a high school outing? Would people go to see introspective, thoughtful films like That’s What I Am just because Randy Orton had a bit part in it?

WWE produced a slew of movies like this — Legendary, The Chaperone, Knucklehead, That’s What I Am, Marine 1 & 2, Inside Out, The Reunion, Behind Enemy Lines, Bending The Rules, all with WWE Superstars in starring roles.

Even among WWE fans, none of them were successful. If WWE Studios couldn’t even attract a WWE audience, how were they ever going to attract a casual audience?

John Cena even admitted he thought his participation in these films had ruined his chances at Hollywood. Speaking on the Insight podcast ahead of his starring role in Fast 9, Cena said, “I had to change my perception and that came after tremendous failure. I thought after all those bad movies I was done.15 years later I got a second chance at the movie business and we are talking about Fast 9. But that comes from absolute fall on your face failure.’

Speaking of his first starring role in WWE Studios, The Marine, Cena said it wasn’t even his movie originally, “I started out doing movies as a business decision. It was originally supposed to be Steve Austin but he passed. Vince [McMahon] was like 'Hey I need you to go to Australia.' This is two weeks before shooting. He explained if we can bolster WWE Studios, we will bolster WWE live event attendance.”

This showed just how little thought was going into those original WWE movies.

John Cena starred in four WWE Studios movies back then — The Marine, 12 Rounds, Legendary, and The Reunion. Now that Cena is a success in Hollywood, it's fair to say that his performances back then were far from the great performance he is pulling out in movies today.

All of these movies were under the watch of former WWE Studios EVP Mike Pavone who was let go from WWE Studios in 2011.

With his departure, WWE Studios underwent a big restructure.

The New WWE Studios Has Had Success

Michael Luisi took over from Pavone as President and immediately WWE Studios started making better choices.

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Under Luisi, WWE made a deal with Fox Home Entertainment to co-produce three straight-to-DVD action movies: Marine 3: Homefront and Marine 4: Moving Target starring the Miz, and 12 Rounds 2: Reloaded starring Randy Orton. They were all relatively cheap to make, costing just $1.5 million and they all proved to be successful. All three made impressive profits, with Marine 3: Homefront making its budget back in just two weeks.

It was a smart move to devote their energy to low-risk straight-to-DVD projects and WWE Studios continued their smart approach by investing in big-budget movies rather than making the movies outright. WWE invested in The Call and Dead Man Down, sending their own wrestlers to have supporting roles in the movies rather than starring ones.

This approach especially worked well with The Call, starring Halle Berry. The movie was a phenomenal success, not only garnering a decent profit but also heightening WWE Studios' profile in Hollywood.

WWE Studios continue to invest in other films while also using their own wrestlers in movies better. Instead of making their stars a fish out of water by making them play characters nobody cares about in movies nobody cares about, WWE Studios have made deals with established properties like The Flinstones, Scooby-Doo, and The Jetsons, making animated movies with their wrestlers playing themselves opposite iconic well-known cartoon characters. Kids don’t care if Triple H is playing an ex-con in a random action flick, but they do care when he is standing face to face with Scooby-Doo!

WWE Studios may never be Oscar-worthy, but compared to how bad it was at the beginning, WWE Studios is actually a bigger success than one may think.