Just how will Arnold Schwarzenegger appear back on the big screen? As an SS officer who saves a campful of prisoners of war? As a structural security expert locked in a prison of his own design? Or as a US border-town sheriff battling a Mexican cartel boss?

According to US reports, the final option is starting to look the most likely. Speculation has been rife about the Austrian-born actor's return to Hollywood ever since he finished his eight-year run as governor of California in January and announced on Twitter that he was moving back into movies. Now a number of sites have reported that The Last Stand, Korean director Kim Ji-woon's English language directorial debut, will most likely be the project that marks his return.

Liam Neeson was previously attached to the film but departed a few months back, leaving the door open for Schwarzenegger. Ji-woon has described The Last Stand as "kind of a combination of Die Hard and High Noon", adding that it's an "optimistic film ... where someone puts their life on the line to protect something that's very important".

Competing for the chance to be Arnie's first live-action movie since 2003 (discounting an uncredited cameo in The Expendables) is The Tomb, from director Anton Fuqua. Variety (paywall) describes it as a thriller about a structural security expert who's framed for a crime and put in a high-security prison he designed himself. Both the above projects seem to have moved ahead of With Wings as Eagles, possibly the most intriguing film of the three, which Schwarzenegger hinted he might take on in January. "I'm reading three scripts," he said then. "One topic/script, which I considered a long time ago before governor, is delighting me particularly. I would play an older [German] soldier, who gets the order at the end of the war to kill a bunch of kids. But he doesn't do it and gets them to safety at the risk of his life. It has all kinds of adventure. The script is based on a true story."

Away from the world of live action, Schwarzenegger cartoon series The Governator, which draws him as a costumed crime-fighter with an array of vehicles and gadgets to help him take down the bad guys, may also get a big-screen 3D transfer. "You will see more action in this series than you have ever seen before, but combined with comedy," the actor said in Cannes earlier this week. "This will not be a violent show. If you look at my movies, a lot of heads come off! That is not what this is." The Governator is expected to secure deals worldwide, including an arrangement for the BBC to show it in Britain.

Schwarzenegger is without doubt an incomparable screen presence, and people forget just how smart he was when developing some of his better projects – notably the 1990 Paul Verhoeven sci-fi romp Total Recall – as projects for himself to star in. But I wonder whether we'll all be champing at the bit for more onscreen Arnie once a few of these films and projects have arrived in cinemas. Could the current fascination for all things Schwarzenegger be a simple case of absence making the heart grow fonder? Or will you be first in line for pretty much anything the Austrian oak decides to get involved in?