Sylvester Stalloneis never far from the headlines, and not simply by dominating the streaming charts with the current fourth season of Taylor Sheridan‘s Tulsa King. Recently, after it was confirmed that his daughter, Scarlet Rose Stallone, had been promoted to series regular for Tulsa King Season 5, Stallone faced backlash online through claims of nepotism. Never one to shy from conflict, Rocky bit back, saying, “Oh please, you’re not a good parent if you haven’t performed a little nepotism. Then obviously you don’t care about your kids, because they come first.”
But in the pantheon of Stallone headlines and controversies, these nepotism claims are merely a drop in the ocean. Undeniably, one of the most infamous periods in Sly’s career was during his two-decade-long feud with fellow action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger, which reportedly lasted until the latter ran for governor of California. In the 1980s and 1990s, incidents of one-upmanship were reported during a busy time in both men’s careers, although, in retrospect, it seems that such a rivalry led to both producing better-quality work and helped shape their careers.
In a new interview on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, Stallone has opened up on one of cinema’s greatest rivalries, which he admitted “wasn’t put to bed until 20 years later.” “You know, we were very confrontational. Because you have two people arriving at the beginning of a different genre and we both want to be in charge of that genre,” he said, continuing:
“I never wanted to be an action guy, but I did ‘First Blood’ and I said, ‘This is interesting because action films, if done right, are modern mythology. It’s like what they used to do, you know, ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’ and Hercules and Achilles.’ So, I see this guy, and I could tell right away he’s going to be a problem.”
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Collider QuizWhatActionSeries WouldYouThriveIn?8 Questions · 4 FranchisesFour franchises. Four completely different ideas of what a hero is: the professional with a code, the family that never leaves anyone behind, the man who does his own stunts, and the guy who simply refuses to go down. Only one of them runs on your particular brand of trouble. Eight questions will tell you which one you would survive.The Four
Wick
Fast
Mission
Die Hard
Casting Has Been CompletedYour Franchise Is
Four action series. One of them is built around exactly the way you handle pressure,
people, and a room that has just gone very quiet. Here is where you would survive the trilogy, and
probably headline it.
2014-2023John WickJohn Wick to Chapter 4Reasonable to the line. Immovable past it.
You are precision with a grudge. You don’t posture, you don’t escalate, and you don’t warn anybody twice. That is exactly why the people who know you are so careful never to be the reason you start.Why You Would Thrive Here
The Wick films run on discipline: an underworld with actual etiquette, a hero who honors
every rule of it, and a world that unravels the instant someone breaks one against him.
You share that quality. You are extraordinarily reasonable right up to the line, and then
completely immovable past it.
Focus, commitment and sheer will. You’d be the one carrying grief through three sequels
and turning it into technique rather than noise.
People wouldn’t call you dangerous. They’d say your name quietly and let that do
the work.
The CodeNo Wasted MotionSay It Quietly
2001-2023Fast & FuriousThe Fast and the Furious to Fast XThe mission can wait. The barbecue cannot.
You understand the thing the whole franchise is secretly about: the cars are spectacular, but the crew is the point. You collect people, you keep them, and you’d drive through a building for any one of them.Why You Would Thrive Here
This series went from street racing to orbit without ever changing its real subject, because
loyalty scales and plot doesn’t have to.
You have the same instinct. You build a family out of whoever turns up, and then you defend
it past the point of reason.
You’d thrive here because the franchise rewards exactly your strengths: warmth, nerve,
an absolute refusal to leave anyone behind, and a relaxed relationship with physics.
The mission can wait. The barbecue cannot.
Found FamilyRide TogetherPhysics Optional
1996-2025Mission: ImpossibleMission: Impossible to The Final ReckoningYou have never once delegated the cliff.
You over-prepare and then take the dangerous part yourself anyway. It looks like control, but it’s really responsibility. You have never worked out how to ask somebody else to carry the risk.Why You Would Thrive Here
This is the franchise of the plan that collapses on schedule: the team, the mask, the
rooftop, and the one person sprinting flat out because sprinting is all that’s left.
You share that refusal to accept an outcome. Told the odds, you treat them as an
administrative error.
You’d thrive here because these films reward competence and loyalty in equal measure.
The mission matters, but nobody on the team gets left on the wrong side of a door.
Some people delegate the cliff. You have never once been that person.
Over-PreparedOwn The RiskStill Running
1988-2013Die HardDie Hard to A Good Day to Die HardYou declined to be the person who let it happen.
You are not the most trained person in the building, the best equipped, or the one anybody would have picked. You are simply the one still standing at the end, which turns out to be the only qualification that matters.Why You Would Thrive Here
Die Hard invented the modern action hero by making him mortal: outnumbered, out-planned,
battered, and extremely funny about it.
You share that stubbornness. Adversity doesn’t make you noble, it makes you sarcastic,
and then it makes you unstoppable.
You’d thrive here because these films reward improvisation and nerve over preparation,
and you’ve never had the luxury of preparing anyway.
You didn’t want any of this. You just declined to be the person who let it happen.
Wrong PlaceImprovisesStill Standing
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The Stallone-Schwarzenegger Rivalry Became Bitter
They may have eventually appeared in four movies together, with the pair co-leading 2013’s Escape Plan, but there was once a time when the feud between Stallone and Schwarzenegger was so bitter that the concept of them sharing a set felt impossible. “You know, we were at the Golden Globe Awards, and he’s sitting there and he’s eyeballing me, and — we call that stink eye — I said, ‘Okay, all right. I got it, pal.’ And then he wins,” Stallone added in the podcast appearance.
As mentioned previously, the bitterness of this rivalry pushed both to craft some of their career-best work. “We’re both physical, and now, who’s going to be the vanguard, the leader in that genre?” Stallone added. “So I do Rambo, he does Commando, and it went back and forth, back and forth, on and off screen. It was very contentious, trust me. Which I enjoyed.”
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