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John Cena recently claimed that he was ‘run out of the movie business’ due to his initial WWE studios film.
With just one match left in his pro-wrestling career, Cena is now all set to face Gunther in his retirement match on December 13th, 2025, before completely focusing on his Hollywood career. Following a path similar to The Rock, Cena transitioned from his WWE career to the movie business. However, recently speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Cena claimed that it was not always smooth and reflected on how he was ‘run out of the business’ after doing WWE Studios’ film ‘The Marine’.
“Vince opened WWE Studios with the idea of, if we make these guys movie stars more people come to the arena,” Cena noted. “Now as a young 20 something on the road people chant your name every night, I’m like that sounds f**king great.”
“His first movie was supposed to be with Steve Austin and it fell through, they were about to shoot in two weeks, so movie pre-production is way longer than that, but he was like you’re going to Australia to film this movie The Marine.”
Sharing how he was run out of the movie business, Cena shared, “So I kind of got run out of the movie business. I did so many shitty movies in like 2009/10, my best friend and agent Dan Baime at the time, I was like, ‘Man, we’re never doing movies again, right?’ And you know, an agent is supposed to be the guy to pick me up he looks at me dead, he goes, ‘Nope, we will find another way though.’ He was honest, we were run out of town, but we’ll find another way, and we did.”
Cena looked back on his early career and explained how challenging the transition was. He said that he’d gone from a life where he would “arrive in a town at noon, work out, get a good meal in, crush the show, have some beers on the bus to the next town, fall asleep, do it all again” a nonstop cycle he described as a “whirlwind of electricity.”
Then he contrasted it with the film world, “Ok, you’re at hair and makeup at six o’clock, we’re doing an explosion today. We probably won’t get to you until about 5:30pm” despite arriving at the set at 6:00 in the morning.
He further mentioned that, being in his twenties, he craved that fast-paced energy and “couldn’t handle the nature of the business,” stating that his passion wasn’t truly there and he wasn’t fully invested.
The 17-time World Champion claimed that he was never fully invested in the movie business. However, he shared about learning from those experiences and putting them to use now. “I am f**king here with you guys right now. We are talking about this. My mind isn’t elsewhere on other st. I want to give you all I’ve got so I’m here with you. I was never there in those movies. I was always back in, ‘F**k, maybe if I have a feud with these guys, or if I could have done this.’ I was never there, and you could see it in the performance.”
Cena and Gunther are set to battle on the December 13th edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event in Washington, D.C.
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