John Cena made his big screen debut with , but this stealth Arnold Schwarzenegger remake almost killed his movie career before it began. Like Dwayne Johnson before him, .

Nowadays, he's the star of Heads of State, Peacemaker and the Fast & Furious franchise, but John Cena's movie career once looked very uncertain. He was essentially pushed into making his 2006 debut The Marine, an explosion-laden chase movie where he plays retired marine John Triton, who must rescue his kidnapped wife from diamond thieves.

, and given Cena's natural charisma as a wrestler, handing him an action vehicle felt inevitable. Sadly, it didn't work in anybody's favor, as (via The Numbers).

Luckily, it arrived during a time when DVD sales gave even modest performers a boost, with the film earning an additional $27 million from home video sales. Still, in the making.

While The Terminator was Arnold Schwarzenegger's big breakthrough, it was 1985's Commando that cemented his stardom. This cast him as a retired Special Forces commando who has to rescue his kidnapped daughter and kill a LOT of people inbetween quips and puns.

While The Marine scales down the puns and bodycount, it's basically Cena's take on Commando. . Both have great antagonists for their heroes, too, with Commando having Bennett (Vernon Wells) and The Marine featuring Robert Patrick's smarmy Rome.

The Marine is a fun, undemanding Wednesday night action flick, with occasional flashes of greatness. Still, it's just not on Commando's level, where it's rare for a scene to pass by without some outrageous gag or act of violence. and suffers as a result.

The Marine may not have lost money, but it was far from the hit WWE hoped it would be. Cena's next starring vehicle came with 2009's 12 Rounds, where he plays a cop whose wife is kidnapped by a vengeful arms dealer. To get her back, Cena's Danny has to survive 12 deadly games the killer has created.

12 Rounds is very much a riff on Die Hard with a Vengeance, which is something all the reviews picked up on. either.

, but it borrows too much from Speed and the Die Hard franchise to feel in any way original or unique. The movie also failed to recoup its $20 million production budget, and in the aftermath, Cena's movie career appeared DOA.

In a candid chat with Happy Sad Confused, Cena grew candid about his early movie failures. and that he had wasted his opportunity for movie stardom. He also claims to have "earned" that grim assessment and puts it down to missing being in the ring.

No, I didn't like making movies, because I was a young man going from town to town and audiences went berserk and I could go around the world. I'd been to Moscow and Tokyo and Delhi and you name it, everywhere, and the same thing happens. Music hits, people go nuts, and 25 minutes later I'm like we're gonna do it again tomorrow night, right?

In Cena's mind, he was then "plucked" from the adrenaline rush of performing live and pushed to front films he didn't want to make. "It was just that it found me at the wrong time in my life," is how the wrestler explains it, as .

That's reflected in the aloof performances he gives in 12 Rounds and The Marine. He largely coasted on his larger-than-life persona without trying to dig into his characters. Of course, they were both pulpy action flicks, so there wasn't much depth to start with - but it feels like the modern-day Cena would have at least tried to find some.

In the same Happy Sad Confused conversation, Cena admits he could have just made crappy, STV action movies coasting on his fame. He didn't want to do that, though, and decided to give his acting career another shot. Cena thus avoided leading roles in favor of supporting parts to build his skills with the likes of Daddy's Home and Sisters.

The unlikely project that gave Cena a second shot was Trainwreck, where he gave a hilarious supporting turn as one of Amy's (Amy Schumer) love interests. , which let audiences (and filmmakers) see him in a totally different way.

This led him to movies like Blockers, F9, The Suicide Squad, and beyond. Considering how poorly his career was going around 2009, Cena's acting comeback is nothing short of miraculous. He's had his share of duds since, like the long-delayed Hidden Strike with Jackie Chan or Freelance, but he's had more hits than misses.

John Cena has also come a very long way since , a movie he didn't want to make, but the one that kickstarted his career regardless. It should be noted that the film received five sequels - but Cena missed out on them all.

Source: The Numbers, Rotten Tomatoes, Happy Sad Confused