84 replies to this topic

[Loomis]

From being the biggest box office star on the planet, bar none (circa 1985), to this. Do ROCKY VI, Sly, RAMBO IV.... find another COP LAND-type script, heck, even another DAYLIGHT.... get yourself a role in "The Sopranos".... anything but this. Tragic. Truly tragic.

From http://news.bbc.co.u...dio/3657827.stm:

Stallone back in ring for TV show

Sylvester Stallone, who starred in the Rocky boxing films, is to produce a US TV show featuring young fighters.

The winner of the NBC series will receive $1m (

[Triton]

No, I don't think that Sylvester Stallone's position is unique at age 57. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford are the obvious exceptions, but careers as leading men in action/adventure roles don't usually last into middle age.

For example, look what happened to Roger Moore's career after the James Bond series? At the present time, Moore is much more known for his charity work for UNICEF than his guest appearances on movies and television.

Stallone, if he doesn't wish to retire, has to find creative ways to find new work.

[Loomis]

No, I don't think that Sylvester Stallone's position is unique at age 57. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford are the obvious exceptions, but careers as leading men in action/adventure roles don't usually last into middle age.

Hmmm.... but I don't think there's ever been a comparable case of an actor rising as high and then falling as low as Sly. Seems virtually everything he's done since the mid-1990s has gone straight to video. Most of the other chaps who were more or less Stallone's peers - De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, Travolta, Gere and so on - are still getting offered plum roles in major movies, while Arnie and Bruce, Sly's Planet Hollywood partners, are still going strong.

I reckon Sly must have just about the worst agent in Hollywood, judging by the dreck he appears in. Then again, he still appears to be earning megabucks. According to the IMDb, he was paid $20 million per picture for the following:

AVENGING ANGELO (straight to video, I believe)

D-TOX (ditto)

DRIVEN

GET CARTER

Turkey after turkey, bomb after bomb, and still he commands $20 million a picture? Unbelievable. Maybe whatever Brosnan was asking for BOND 21 was quite reasonable after all.

[Roebuck]

Turkey after turkey, bomb after bomb, and still he commands $20 million a picture?

Probably because the studios have finally twigged to the fact they can make a comfortable return, on the rental/sell through market at least, by marketing directly to the hard core fan base. Kind of like the ageing pop stars who's recent albums are only available off their own websites.

The Foreigner, a terrible film even by Steven Seagal's recent standard, was the most rented direct-to-video feature for the first half of 2003. He's got at least three movies in production this year and, though I'll wager none of them will be particularly great films, all of them are certain to make their producers fat profits.

[Max Zorin]

AVENGING ANGELO (straight to video, I believe)

With a title like that, I couldn't imagine it being anything BUT direct to video...

Real shame about Sly, though. He always seemed like a nice enough guy, who really did care about his work. And he showed a glimmer of talent in Copland.

This just seems desperate...hell, even Carl Weathers has a recurring role on "Arrested Development". Poor Sly has turned into a second rate (!) Dolph Lundgren.

(And yes, when I talk about Stallone I do feel the need to compare him to NOTHING BUT other Rocky actors.)

[SPECTRE ASSASSIN]

See Stallone. After all those crappy Rocky sequels, that bad Judge Dredd movie, that horrid Eye See You straight-to-video movie and that terrible Driven movie, bad things will follow. I agree that his career right now is in the pits, but I actually like this new show he's producing, The Contender.

I'm a fan of boxing, so the show sounds promising.

At least his career right now is doing better than his muscle-bound rival, Arnold Schwarzenegger... NOT!!!

Schwarzenegger for President in 2012!

[CommanderBond]

Schwarzenegger for President in 2012? He cant because he was born overseas....back to the subject...i dont think its a new low i just think its not necessary. He sunk to a new low by doing soooo many rocky movies

[Qwerty]

[quote name='Loomis' date='25 April 2004 - 16:36'] From being the biggest box office star on the planet, bar none (circa 1985), to this. Do ROCKY VI, Sly, RAMBO IV.... find another COP LAND-type script, heck, even another DAYLIGHT.... get yourself a role in "The Sopranos".... anything but this. Tragic. Truly tragic.

From http://news.bbc.co.u...dio/3657827.stm:

Stallone back in ring for TV show

Sylvester Stallone, who starred in the Rocky boxing films, is to produce a US TV show featuring young fighters.

The winner of the NBC series will receive $1m (

[SPECTRE ASSASSIN]

Schwarzenegger for President in 2012? He cant because he was born overseas....

So... the U.S can change the amendment.

[CommanderBond]

I highly doubt it.

[Loomis]

Back in the day, Stallone wasn't the joke figure he is now (and it's unfair that he's often portrayed as a musclebound moron, but there we are). He was viewed by many as the new Brando, the new Pacino, an intense young working class Italian American actor with talent and charisma to burn.... and one who was also a skilled screenwriter with a passion for directing. Let's not forget that he won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for ROCKY, and was nominated for Best Actor. I truly believe he has more talent and star quality in his little finger than most of today's so-called A-list megastars have in their entire bodies. Heck, as well as writing, directing and starring in ROCKY IV, he also wrote the novelization (!).

As a Sly fan, I'm far from happy about the way his career is going. I know it's very easy (and, ultimately, pointless) for me to sit here and type away, telling him what he ought to do, but he should take one last roll of the action/franchise dice with both ROCKY VI and RAMBO IV - and he should make those movies now, since he's only three years shy of 60. Quit faffing around with cameos in films like SPY KIDS 3, TAXI 3, MY LITTLE HOLLYWOOD and AN ALAN SMITHEE FILM: BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN, and bin the next consignment of scripts for straight-to-video dreck like EYE SEE YOU, SHADE and AVENGING ANGELO. Such movies will always be there. The chance to do another Rocky or Rambo won't. With Arnie doing T3, Gibson perhaps doing MAD MAX 4, and Bruce possibly putting John McClane's dirty vest on again, who would begrudge Sly going back to Rocky and Rambo?

Having done ROCKY VI and RAMBO IV* to have a couple of easy hits and raise his profile again, he should draw a line under the he-man action genre and look for more films like COP LAND (in which he acts De Niro, Keitel and Liotta offscreen, IMO), maybe lobby for a role on "The Sopranos" (now that would send his coolness factor soaring, I reckon). I read that he was going to play the De Niro role in JACKIE BROWN, and that he was also considered for the Willis role in PULP FICTION - well, Tarantino is the way to go, as John Travolta and David Carradine will tell you. The Quentmeister is supposedly a big Stallone fan, so maybe he'll give him a role in the upcoming INGLORIOUS BASTARDS.

*Both of which could be made fairly cheaply and quickly, especially ROCKY VI. Heck, GET CARTER could easily have been RAMBO IV, with a few script changes.

[SPECTRE ASSASSIN]

Point taken, Loomis. Stallone was and still is a talented filmmaker. He just hasn't made the right choices in his career, and hasn't tried too hard to make himself a serious actor in serious film roles, like his superb performance in COPLAND.

Maybe with "The Contender", his list of movie offers will be coming his way.

[TheSaint]

At the end of the day, even though he hasn't been in a hit movie for a while, he's not exactly living in a cardboard box. If this is low, I'll take it over my current financial situation.

[Loomis]

If this is low, I'll take it over my current financial situation.

Good point. Me too.

[Gabe Vieira]

All of the Rocky movies took more than $100m in box office takings - apart from the fifth film, released in 1990, which took just $40m.

There WAS a fifth one Well I'm only 16 so... What was it about? Stallone vs. His career after 1990? He apparently lost.

[Robinson]

No, I don't think that Sylvester Stallone's position is unique at age 57. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford are the obvious exceptions, but careers as leading men in action/adventure roles don't usually last into middle age.

Hmmm.... but I don't think there's ever been a comparable case of an actor rising as high and then falling as low as Sly. Seems virtually everything he's done since the mid-1990s has gone straight to video. Most of the other chaps who were more or less Stallone's peers - De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, Travolta, Gere and so on - are still getting offered plum roles in major movies, while Arnie and Bruce, Sly's Planet Hollywood partners, are still going strong.

I reckon Sly must have just about the worst agent in Hollywood, judging by the dreck he appears in. Then again, he still appears to be earning megabucks. According to the IMDb, he was paid $20 million per picture for the following:

AVENGING ANGELO (straight to video, I believe)

D-TOX (ditto)

DRIVEN

GET CARTER

Turkey after turkey, bomb after bomb, and still he commands $20 million a picture? Unbelievable. Maybe whatever Brosnan was asking for BOND 21 was quite reasonable after all.

What you seem to forget is that Stallone's "peers" have gone through their lean periods and they're on the top of the sine curve where Stallone(and Segal, VanDamme & Arnold) are on the bottom.

DeNiro, Pacino and Hoffman are A-List actors who don't drive the action-adventure market. It's enough just to have these actors on screen to up the so-called prestige factor. Remember, even with DeNiro and Pacino, Michael Mann's Heat didn't gross more that $80million domestically. If it wasn't for Tarantino's love for Travolta, John would still be appearing in sequels to LOOK WHO'S TALKING. Judging by Travolta's penchant for high paycheck, big budget bombs like BASIC, there's a chance that 5-10 years down the road he could be right back to where he was pre-PULP. Gere went into his dry spell not long after the success of AN OFFICER & A GENTLEMAN. It wasn't until back to back roles in INTERNAL AFFAIRS and PRETTY WOMAN that moved him back towards the upper echelon. Hell Connery rose from obscurity when he decided to play the old sage role in HIGHLANDER and replay that character in flicks like THE UNTOUCHABLES, THE ROCK, RISING SUN, etc.

The problem with Stallone is that he never took any risks until it was too late. Arnold could never be anything but Arnold. Willis was the reluctant, more human hero. However, what separates the latter from Sly is their willingness to take risks- the biggest being to die onscreen. GET CARTER would've been aa smash had he stayed true to the Michael Caine original.

THE CONTENDER will probably be Sly's mini-resurrection. He won't have the same success that he had in the 80s but he won't be hoping to appear in an Old Navy ad either.

Please, I'm still shaking my head over Mickey Rourke's career.

Edited by Robinson, 26 April 2004 - 05:13 PM.

[Loomis]

There WAS a fifth one ... What was it about? Stallone vs. His career after 1990? He apparently lost.

Actually, you've pretty much nailed it.

[Loomis]

What you seem to forget is that Stallone's "peers" have gone through their lean periods and they're on the top of the sine curve where Stallone(and Segal, VanDamme & Arnold) are on the bottom.

DeNiro, Pacino and Hoffman are A-List actors who don't drive the action-adventure market. It's enough just to have these actors on screen to up the so-called prestige factor. Remember, even with DeNiro and Pacino, Michael Mann's Heat didn't gross more that $80million domestically. If it wasn't for Tarantino's love for Travolta, John would still be appearing in sequels to LOOK WHO'S TALKING. Judging by Travolta's penchant for high paycheck, big budget bombs like BASIC, there's a chance that 5-10 years down the road he could be right back to where he was pre-PULP. Gere went into his dry spell not long after the success of AN OFFICER & A GENTLEMAN. It wasn't until back to back roles in INTERNAL AFFAIRS and PRETTY WOMAN that moved him back towards the upper echelon. Hell Connery rose from obscurity when he decided to play the old sage role in HIGHLANDER and replay that character in flicks like THE UNTOUCHABLES, THE ROCK, RISING SUN, etc.

Yes, but the difference between Sly and his "peers" is that, while they've all tasted failure as well as success, only Sly never made it back up again after hitting rock bottom. Everyone else has had "yo-yo" careers. Sly was finished as a major star at the turn of the 1990s, and he stayed finished. He never had a "comeback".

I disagree that he "never took any risks until it was too late". Look at the likes of RHINESTONE and STAYING ALIVE, which he made while still on top of the world. FIRST BLOOD was a pretty big risk, too.

[Robinson]

Yes, but the difference between Sly and his "peers" is that, while they've all tasted failure as well as success, only Sly never made it back up again after hitting rock bottom. Everyone else has had "yo-yo" careers. Sly was finished as a major star at the turn of the 1990s, and he stayed finished. He never had a "comeback".

I disagree that he "never took any risks until it was too late". Look at the likes of RHINESTONE and STAYING ALIVE, which he made while still on top of the world. FIRST BLOOD was a pretty big risk, too.

The bigger risk with FIRST BLOOD would've been to have Trautman kill Rambo just like he did in the David Morrell novel. But he just couldn't let it go, just like he couldn't let Rocky die- as scripted at the end of ROCKY V.

I still believe that F.I.S.T. was one of Stallone's greatest films. I completely forgot about RHINESTONE and I wondered why Sly never opted to direct again after STAYING ALIVE.

OVER THE TOP, say it with me people, OVER THE TOP!

[Loomis]

The bigger risk with FIRST BLOOD would've been to have Trautman kill Rambo just like he did in the David Morrell novel. But he just couldn't let it go, just like he couldn't let Rocky die- as scripted at the end of ROCKY V.

Well, I'm not sure whether it was up to Stallone whether Rambo lived or died - he may have insisted on leaving the door open for a sequel or several, but it might have been the producers' call for all I know. Anyhow, the ending of FIRST BLOOD is still pretty downbeat.

Why do I say that FIRST BLOOD was a risk for Sly? Well, because he was playing, essentially, a guy who was mentally ill. Not a psycho or a bad guy, but definitely an antihero, a victim of circumstance, a danger to himself and others. Sure, the character's anger, craziness and violence was toned down somewhat from David Morrell's novel, but John Rambo in FIRST BLOOD was still hardly your typical A-list Hollywood star-type role. I gather it was turned down by a number of major stars for that very reason.

I've never seen F.I.S.T., but I'll buy it like a shot if it's ever released on DVD here in Britain.

I, too, wonder why Sly didn't direct for so long (his last film as director was ROCKY IV), especially given the fact that his acting career has been in the doldrums since the early 1990s. He's a talented director, in my book. Actually, he is directing a film at the moment, I believe, NOTORIOUS (a.k.a. RAMPART SCANDAL), about the deaths of Biggie and Tupac, but I've heard whispers that the picture is in serious trouble. Guy ought to change his name to Jinx.

[Loomis]

Looks like the gloves are off now. Go, Sly! Wonder if similar action crossed the minds of Broccoli and Wilson after MGM pulled the plug on JINX?

From http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/#3:

Stallone Plans To Sock MGM with a Lawsuit

Sylvester Stallone is planning to sue MGM for allegedly reneging on an agreement to produce Rocky VI, and then refusing to allow him to shop the script for the film to other studios, the New York Post reported today (Tuesday) in its "Page Six" column. The newspaper also reported that Stallone is furious about MGM's plans to produce a boxing reality show that it is billing as "just like Rocky," while Stallone himself has sold his own reality boxing show The Contender. An MGM spokesman told the newspaper: "We own the name and the rights to 'Rocky,' and can do what we want with it. [Stallone] has no basis for a lawsuit."

[Onyx2626]

First I have to see Burt Reynolds doing MAACO ads, now this. You know who went away gracefully? Alan Alda. He hosts some show on PBS. I think that works, kind of a "now I want to do something for the kids" thing.

[Robinson]

First I have to see Burt Reynolds doing MAACO ads, now this. You know who went away gracefully? Alan Alda. He hosts some show on PBS. I think that works, kind of a "now I want to do something for the kids" thing.

No, when it's psychic hotline infomercials, then you know it's over.

I mean even doing HOLLYWOOD SQUARES has a "hip quotient" to it.

[ChandlerBing]

Well, Loomis--since you seem to take so much pleasure in trashing Brosnan-- if you're looking for sympathy regarding your buddy Stallone, it's somewhere in the dictionary between and syphillis.

[Kingdom Come]

Triton, as far as I understand the reason or one of them for Roger choosing to step away from films after AVTAK was one he shared with his wife and many other people! and that is, he was aware of how much time he has left and wanted to enjoy it with his family instead of making more films. As for Stallone, he was very well paid star and never needs to work again. All very famous 'stars' go through this; some take it and try something else; the wise ones wait on it coming and plan ahead for when the day comes when audiences no longer are drawn by him/her.

[Onyx2626]

First I have to see Burt Reynolds doing MAACO ads, now this.  You know who went away gracefully?  Alan Alda.  He hosts some show on PBS.  I think that works, kind of a "now I want to do something for the kids" thing.

No, when it's psychic hotline infomercials, then you know it's over.

I mean even doing HOLLYWOOD SQUARES has a "hip quotient" to it.

haha funny, but true

[DLibrasnow]

What about Burt Reynolds who was the biggest movie star in the world in the late 1970s?

[Loomis]

Well, Loomis--since you seem to take so much pleasure in trashing Brosnan-- if you're looking for sympathy regarding your buddy Stallone, it's somewhere in the dictionary between and syphillis.

Do I take it, then, that your view is: "Since Loomis likes Stallone, I've decided not to like him"? If so, isn't that a bit of an unnecessary and fruitless limitation you're setting for yourself?

Anyhow, I doubt that Brosnan's post-Bond career with be any more glittering than Sly's post Rocky/Rambo career.

[ChandlerBing]

Not at all. Stallone is a "class" unto himself. He has been a joke for most of his career. Rocky was a fluke. His career basically ended with Rocky IV and Dumbo First Brood Part 2. Aside from Cliffhanger, he hasn't had much of a hit. Oh, wait, there was Spy Kids 3D. I have to give you credit there.
If you want to keep your vendetta against Pierce Brosnan out in the open, that is fine, but when you post how sorry you are about the state of someone like Stallone's career, get ready, because you have opened the floodgates, and what comes around can definitely go around. Personally, I think it's kind of disturbing the comments you and other people post here about Brosnan. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, but that would require a conscience, humility, and other big words you would not understand.

[DLibrasnow]

If you want to keep your vendetta against Pierce Brosnan out in the open, that is fine,

Pierce who??