As Arnold Schwarzenegger made clear a couple weeks ago, he’s planning a return to acting. Or “acting.” The question is, what kind of projects will he take on? How do you jump back into the Hollywood game after nearly eight years as the governor of California? As it turns out, Arnold wants to relive his glory days and star in remakes of The Terminator, Predator, and The Running Man. No steps forward, two steps back.

This is what Arnold told a fansite devoted to him about scripts that he’s been sent recently:

“Well, first of all it’s more [than] 15 films, obvious ones from The Terminator to remakes of Predator and The Running Man and all of those things. Then also a lot of original stuff too. But I am also packaging a Comic Book character right now. I’m going to announce that sometime by the end of March or the beginning of April.”

So he wants to stay in his comfort zone. But the cultural moment in which The Terminator was relevant has passed, and with it Arnold’s relevance as an actor. The depressing thing is that should he decide to become the Terminator again, millions of people will probably flock to theaters as though 1984 never happened. And the remake will probably be too high-tech, way too long, and in 3-D, since that’s a de facto requirement of action films now.

A good career move for Arnold would be to become one of those once-huge mainstream stars that appears in silly cameos on TV shows like 30 Rock, and then, out of nowhere, makes an affecting turn in an indie movie as a cancer patient or something. It’ll never happen because Hollywood is boring, but wouldn’t it be great to see Arnold in a scene with Tracy Morgan?