Arnold Schwarzenegger has found success in showbiz as a star of the big screen as well as in politics as the governor of California. Now, Schwarzenegger is moving to the small screen for a scripted TV show that not many of us may have expected of him. The new series was conceived with the first stage of his career in the limelight, before he began terminating and catchphrase-ing his way to international fame, and it will focus on the time when he was known primarily for his competitive bodybuilding. The show will be called Pump and run for eight hour-long episodes for CBS.
Pump will be set in 1973 and will follow the exploits of a group of Venice Beach bodybuilders as they develop the physical fitness industry and change the way that people look at their bodies, according to Deadline. The era was one in which bodybuilders were often dismissed as people with abnormalities rather than abilities, and they tended to struggle financially. Still, they found ways to embrace Southern California 1970s hedonism, and as someone who knows that world all too well, Arnold Schwarzenegger will work as a producer on the project.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is really the perfect name to have attached to a show about competitive bodybuilding. He has arguably had the most success of anyone in that world to date, and he was a big name in bodybuilding before he was ever a big name in Hollywood. His involvement in the development of Pump adds some serious legitimacy to the project and guarantees that the series won't just be eight hours of muscly men flexing for the camera.
The series has been in the works for a while, although it had not found a home on a particular network for quite some time. It was first developed for Showtime, then jumped to Hulu before landing at CBS. There's no news yet of when we should expect to see Pump hit the airwaves in its most current form.
Arnold Schwarzenegger will be joined behind-the-scenes by Bryan Goluboff, who will work as showrunner and executive producer. He worked on Blue Bloods as an executive producer and writer, and he also contributed his talents to Smash and Law & Order: SVU. Goluboff has experience in multiple genres that could help him create a new kind of hit in this new project. There's nothing else like Pump on television nowadays, and he could be just the right person to use Schwarzenegger's experiences as a bodybuilder to craft a series that will appeal to a wide audience.
Pump is actually the second network series that will involve Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's set to replace Donald Trump as host of Celebrity Apprentice for the next season on NBC. Trump was fired by NBC in response to some of his inflammatory remarks about immigration at the beginning of his POTUS campaign, and NBC then brought Schwarzenegger in as a less controversial figure. It could be interesting to see if Schwarzenegger will have two different series on two different networks on the air at the same time. He's only involved in Pump from a production standpoint at this point, so we should only expect to see him in front of the camera on Celebrity Apprentice.
It could be a while before we get to see Pump on network television, so be sure to check out our fall TV premiere schedule to see what you'll be able to watch in the not-too-distant future.
