Hollywood legend Arnold Schwarzenegger will turn himself into the greatest of all the Greek gods for an upcoming Superbowl advertisement for the German automaker BMW, called simply “Zeus.”
With just an avatar and a few words on Instagram, he recently shared the poster for the upcoming ad, showing his white-bearded visage while wearing golden body armor.
The actor, who was once Governor of California, shared the news last Thursday, adding just a cryptic caption that intoned, “Coming February 2022.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger appears as white-bearded Greek God Zeus
Schwarzenegger looks vengeful and angry as the king of all the Greek gods, as thunderbolts fly in the darkened skies in the background. He will be joined by versatile actress Salma Hayek Pinault as his consort, Hera. The Greek gods will be portrayed in order to make the connection between Zeus’ thunderbolts and BMW’s new all-electric cars.
The veteran actor’s post went viral, with fans and followers excited about the upcoming advertisement. The 74-year-old’s son, Joseph Baena, a real estate agent in Beverly Hills, commented, “Oh god of the sky, please bless my pump today.”
Schwarzenegger’s teaser was not for the feature film of the Greek god in his old age, as many of his fans had anticipated, but rather for a Super Bowl commercial which will be run during the big game on February 13.
Schwarzenegger is now single, after finally being divorced from former wife Maria Shriver ten years after she filed for the split.
Zeus ruled all the Greek gods from mountain fastness of Mt. Olympus
Zeus, the greatest of all the figures of Greek mythology, ruled over all the assembled gods and goddesses of the realm atop his mountain fastness on Mt. Olympus, along with his wife Hera.
He was the god of the sky, lightning and thunder in ancient Greek religion. His mythology and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun, Indra, Dyaus and Thor.
The most fearsome of all the ancient Greek deities in every way, he was the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings, although sometimes counted as the eldest, since the others required disgorging from Cronus’s stomach. He was said to have grown up on the Greek island of Naxos.
In most traditions, he is married to the goddess Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, however, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom Homer’s Iliad states that he fathered the goddess of love, Aphrodite.
Zeus, the god of the sky, thunder, had temples dedicated to him in Olympia, Athens, and Rome
Zeus was also infamous for his many love affairs and conquests, resulting in many divine, heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses.
He was respected as an “allfather” who was chief of the gods and he was the one who assigned roles to the others: “Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence,” Homer wrote in the Iliad.
He was equated with many foreign gods of the sky and weather phenomena as well, causing Pausanias to observe “That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men.” Zeus’ symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak tree. Also known more poetically as the “cloud-gatherer” (Greek: Νεφεληγερέτα, Nephelēgereta) Zeus also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East, such as the scepter.
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