Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Planet Hollywood life size Arnold/Terminator from T2

made from scratch movie prop

I spent a few years looking for one of these.  It was kind of a hobby, spending countless hours tracking down potential people that might have a clue where the statues might exist.

One statue maybe two statues were given away in a contest circa 1998 confirmed by a corporate employee at Planet Hollywood. My hometown of San Francisco had it's own Planet Hollywood and had the lifesize Arnold on display. I loved it as I loved a lot of the props and replicas they had on display. One day as a teenager I visited the restaurant and there was a contest to give away a life size Arnold/Terminator statue. I never followed up bt always remembered that. Years later I tried looking all over the place online to find any clues. Old newspaper articles, magazine articles, video clips, old websites using waybackmachine. I tracked many Planet Hollywood employees down and many movie prop makers, collectors and enthusiasts without ANY luck. And then one day a Planet Hollywood statue shows up on Ebay and I moved fast to buy it.  And so the quest is over but it was fun.  I wanted to share my story as well as some facts on the statue. 

One fact is that approximately 60 statues were made. At one time each restaurant had a statue.  Planet Hollywood went bankrupt twice and each time they closed several restaurants. As the restaurants closed all the props and replicas were to be sent back to Florida headquarters. A few of the statues were never sent back and have been MIA ever since. 

I know that Propstore sold a statue circa 2007. They did not provide any further details to me.

A UK film museum has one statue on display. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger himself owns two of the statues.

One at his place in Malibu/Venice beach area.  And one of the statues is on display in his museum in Thal, Austria. 

All of the statues were made at Stan Winston studios using the same molds as used in the movie. 

All of the jackets/pants were made by Bates, who also made all the original leather jackets/pants for the movies. They are a stripped down version though, witihout a lining and lesser quality leather. 

The boots are Harley Davidson but some statues had generic "engineer" motorcycle boots. 

A race car shop in southern california made the grenade slings. 

Early versions of Arnolds head were made of flexible urethane that had some incidences of warpage over the years. Later Arnold heads were made of silicone.

The silicone heads had punched hair while the flexible urethane heads had "net hair".  A craftsperson tied hairs to a fine net like material and that was glued to the scalp. 

The open chest and knee parts are cast resin and then were vacuum metalized/plated.  On top of this skin tone paints covered most of the exposed area followed by blood paints where the exposed endo parts meet the torn flesh. 

The entire body seems to be Arnolds body cast. And the only hand he has, the right hand appears to be Arnolds hand cast as well.  The body casting is molded with a metal internal frame/structure underneath for support.  1" pipe fittings are welded near the feet to utilize pipe flanges.

Most of the belt buckles are wrong on the Planet Hollywood Arnolds as the original buckles were no longer made and impossible to get.  That is one thing I replaced on my statue. 

A flexible yet detailed foam M79 is included with an incorrect grenade sling, which I will replace as well.

I remember seeing a statue in person with a fading up and down red eye.

I hope to buy a kit that does that. I'd love to find an acrylic cylinder as the Planet Hollywood statues had but they are hugely expensive.  I'm working on a simple metal grating display base for now. I may offer kits in the future, of the chest , knee and hand pieces.  I've made pants belt replicas in the past as well as grenade slings + grenades.  The jacket is hugely important in the look so I may make templates to either make a jacket from scratch or modify existing jackets.

The entire statue weighs close to 100lbs.