of his Camaro, Owens warns him about parking in the fire lane before he, Torrance and Martinez walk into the diner. Cast Production In June 2009, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and studio Lionsgate pre-emptively picked up Andrew Knauer's spec script for The Last Stand. Back then, the script involved Cortez escaping with a Gumpert Apollo. One year later, South Korean director Kim Jee-woon became attached to the project. di Bonaventura stated that Jee-woon was invited because he felt that in his filmography he "makes the simple feel rich". Kim in turn declared that he was attracted to the plot of "protecting something important, no matter how small", and having advanced technology being taken down in "analogue ways". Writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff was also brought in to rewrite the script, which di Bonaventura compared the film to a Western film, with a small town being attacked by an analogue to a corrupt cattle baron and a weathered veteran trying to stop him. Liam Neeson was considered for the protagonist, but after he passed in 2011 Lionsgate offered the project to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had just ended his tenure as Governor of California. He was announced on The Last Stand in July 2011. The actor said he considered the project "a lot different for me, even though it's action-packed, because I have to play a guy who's sensitive to my team. And we have lots of laughs like in True Lies." Jee-woon was at first apprehensive to have such a big star in the project, but once both discussed the project he noticed both had the same ideas for Ray Owens, aiming for an everyman instead of a "Terminator like feel". Two weeks later, Lionsgate announced a release date of January 18, 2013. Filming started on October 17, 2011 in Belen, New Mexico and Nevada. Sommerton was required to be a border town, and Jee-woon also wanted a city that represented "Small Town America". Belen was eventually chosen for having an abandoned area that could be used by the production company for as long as they needed it. Two existing buildings became landmarks of Sommerton, the local hotel and a condemned building that became the diner. Six vacant lots were filled with façades, in which production designer Franco-Giacomo Carbone tried to put a mixture of styles to heighten the appearance of a frontier city with much history. While the producers originally wanted to