Arnold Schwarzenegger Channels Werner Herzog For First Doc Narration ‘Wonders Of The Sea 3D’ – Cannes Studio

Arnold Schwarzenegger decamped to the Croisette this week for a career-first, bringing a documentary he has narrated to the Marche. Wonders Of The Sea 3D is directed by Jean-Michel Cousteau & Jean-Jacques Mantello and is produced by Francois Mantello and Schwarzenegger. The film takes a trip under the ocean, capturing footage of sea creatures and warning heavily about the threat from climate change. It continues the Cousteau family legacy started by Jean-Michel’s father Jacques Cousteau.

At a beachside bar this morning in Cannes, Schwarzenegger expounded on his involvement in the film and was amused by a suggestion that he was channeling German auteur Werner Herzog with his narration. “Oh, he does some good documentaries,” he said. “I think, if you have a certain voice, that is not just reading off a script, but really drawing in the people and acting enthusiastically about the whole thing, then you draw them in and they really get entertained.”

In the video above, he and Francois Mantello discuss the importance of protecting the ocean, and the film which Schwarzenegger hopes will do for marine conservation what Saturday Night Fever did for disco dancing and the Schwarzenegger-starring Pumping Iron did for gym memberships.

And below, Jean-Jacques Mantello and Jean-Michel Cousteau team up to explain the purpose behind their picture. “I’ve been diving for 72 years since my father pushed me overboard as a kid,” said Cousteau. “I can see things on a screen that I could never see with the naked eye when I go diving. Thanks to the equipment, we’re able to focus in slow motion on tiny little creatures, and you see their behavior.”

Schwarzenegger also reflected on his time as California’s governor, noting that under his administration, California had become one of the first states to introduce measures designed to protect coastlines. “California is the sixth largest economy in the world,” he noted. “We’re a good example that you can do both; protect the environment, protect the ocean and at the same time have the most booming economy.”

It was up to individual states, he said, to put these plans in place, as the environmental policies of country-wide administrations came and went.