John Cena says he was ‘run out of the movie business’ after WWE movies
John Cena says that he was “run out of the movie business: due to his first WWE Studios film.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Cena talked about that and how he first got into the movies: through Vince McMahon’s WWE Studios.
“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.'”
Cena says McMahon’s first movie was supposed to star “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, but fell through.
“They were about to shoot in two weeks, but movie pre-production is way longer than that. But, he was like, ‘You’re going to Australia to film this movie The Marine.'”
The reaction after that performance and subsequent films was difficult.
“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.”
He contrasted that 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 six in the morning.
Being in his twenties at the time, he said he craved that fast-paced energy and “couldn’t handle the nature of the business,” stating that his passion wasn’t truly in Hollywood and he wasn’t fully invested — something that has changed with time.
“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.”
Shounak Chakrabarti is an experienced sports journalist with a lifelong passion for athletics and storytelling. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Journalism from the University of Leeds and joined F4WOnline in 2025.
Shounak takes particular interest in soccer, closely following top clubs like Real Madrid and Arsenal. Beyond sports, he enjoys fiction writing, photography, gaming, and cinema.