Is this it? Is this the sign that in America at least, every single thing that can possibly be released on DVD is already out? I refer to the news that Rambo: The Animated Series is to be released on DVD. I had no idea that such a show ever existed, and it truly boggles the mind. But then, having been about nine or ten when Rambo: First Blood Part II was released, I do recall that the film series had a lot of appeal for small boys. (Who knows what it did to their fragile little minds – although it could do a lot to explain the current political environment). The picture on the front of volume 2, in which Rambo punches out an indeterminate ethnic stereotype, is particularly disturbing. (And have Bruce Lee’s estate signed off on the use of the title “Enter the Dragon?”)
It makes for a double-barreled attack of Stallone news, as Ain’t It Cool is reporting that Tarantino wants to cast Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger alongside each other in his Inglorious Bastards. Of course, this isn’t really news until he gets them to sign on the dotted line, but it’s an intriguing prospect nonetheless. Tarantino does have the necessary reputation and respect to potentially get something like this up, and both actors would be silly not to take it. Both are in the twilight of their film careers, but still big enough names that their appearance together would be a huge drawcard. Who could resist the opportunity to see these guys struggling together through Tarantino’s dialogue?
It is also an excuse to trot out a theory I’ve had for a while: there can be only one Stallone. What I mean is that there can only be one star at a time who is really filling the niche as Hollywood’s enormous, musclebound guy with limited dialogue skills. Throughout the careers of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, there was always one of them who was dominant and one who was on the wane at any given time. It’s a fairly tenuous theory, I’ll admit, but I do think both men’s careers are interesting and that each has had ebbs and flows that often mirrored the success or failure of the other. Indeed, their whole careers can be broken down into Schwarzenegger’s Years and Stallone’s Years, roughly as follows:
1976 – 1982: Stallone’s Years
Stallone broke big and started earlier, and therefore undoubtedly owns these early years. Rocky was one of those triumphs few Hollywood figures can point to: coming from nowhere to write and star in a film that won an Oscar for Best Picture (he got nominations for his screenplay and his performance, too). Roger Ebert compared his acting to Marlon Brando’s, which seems silly in retrospect, but if you actually go back and watch Rocky he’s pretty good. (Another reason to dislike the Razzies – in 2000 they gave him an award for “Worst Actor of the Century,” which is just stupid. His range is limited – very limited – but he can act. Certainly more than Schwarzenegger).
This triumph was followed with Rocky II in 1979 – not one for the pantheon, but a decent sequel and a big success, and he also directed it. First Blood gave him another hit in 1982, and established Rambo, his other defining character. There were already signs of a struggle to maintain a career outside Rocky and Rambo, with forgotten films such as F.I.S.T., Paradise Alley (writing and directing again), and Victory. Rocky III (1982) was also another sign of trouble on the horizon: it was the first suggestion that the Rocky series would descend into a running joke. But it did have “Eye of the Tiger” in it, and was also a success.
Schwarzenegger is not even on the horizon for most of this period, making films such as the execrable Road Runner cartoon / western hybrid Cactus Jack (aka Villain). In 1982 he had his first big hit with Conan the Barbarian, but that isn’t enough to knock off Stallone in the year of First Blood and Rocky III.
1983 – 1984: Schwarzenegger’s Years
Schwarzenegger doesn’t have to show up to win 1983 – the only credit either man has is Stallone’s credit as writer / director of the famous flop Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever. Sometimes success is knowing when not to make a movie.
Schwarzenegger undoubtedly owns 1984, with his breakout role in The Terminator, the one real undisputed classic on his resume, and a second Conan film (Conan the Destroyer). Stallone’s only appearance in this year is Rhinestone, starring opposite Dolly Parton and being directed by the guy who made Porky’s. Clearly he needs to regroup.
1985: Stallone’s Year
After a few uncertain years, Stallone reverted back to his two big franchise in 1985, releasing Rocky IV and Rambo: First Blood Part II. Both were big hits, and both are classic Reagan-era comic-strip propaganda movies. Rocky IV is the cold-war Rocky entry, with Rocky versus the Russian; but it’s also the film in which he seems to be fighting a effigy of Schwarzenegger, in Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren would make a few films of his own, but he never made much headway: the field was too crowded, and Stallone and Schwarzenegger had too much of a head start. Also interesting is that the co-screenwriter (with Stallone) on Rambo was James Cameron, who had given Schwarzenegger his stand-out film to this date. In 1985 the writing was on the wall and Stallone was playing defence.
Schwarzenegger had nothing to answer Stallone’s Rocky/Rambo double bill in 1985, with two minor action projects (Commando and Red Sonja). They were amongst a number of Schwarzenegger’s action films of the 1980s that had little prospect of elevating him to star status: films like these would do respectable business, particularly on video, but would never lift him above a scrum of mid-range action stars like Jean-Claude van Damme and Steven Seagal.
1986 – 1992 – Schwarzenegger’s Years
This was the period in which Schwarzenegger came into his own and Stallone fell away. Stallone’s fate in this period is particularly instructive, yielding a clear lesson: don’t abuse your franchises. The 1985 Rocky IV and Rambo extravaganza was a quick-fix career wise, but it left Stallone in a hole. By making two such bad films he was effectively killing off each of his two main characters: while both films did well, he would pay a price later, because people would be reluctant to see further entries in the series. Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, would achieve a reverse effect: The Terminator would do good business on video throughout the 80s, building its critical and audience reputation and laying the groundwork for a monster hit with the sequel in 1991.
Schwarzenegger was still doing middle rung action work (Raw Deal in 1986, The Running Man in 1987, and Red Heat in 1988), but he was gaining momentum. Probably his standout film in the latter half of the 80s is John McTiernan’s Predator in 1987, a pretty good science-fiction / action hybrid. Stallone, meanwhile, was in disarray, with Cobra in 1986 and his turn as a professional arm-wrestler in 1987’s Over the Top. He had another shot with the Rambo series in 1988, with Rambo III (since the previous film was Rambo: First Blood Part II, this surely should have been Rambo II: First Blood Part III, but that’s just my pedantry flaring up). However, it was dramatically outgunned at the box-office by Schwarzenegger’s Twins, a film that cost much less to make.
Twins, as the first outright comedy on either man’s resume, would turn out to be something of a red herring for both of them. What both seemed to miss was that Schwarzenegger wasn’t a comedy performer in Twins: he was a joke. His accent, his huge bulk, and his unwieldy manner were all punch lines to the stunt of casting of him as Danny De Vito’s twin brother. While Schwarzenegger came off as a good sport in Twins, there was nothing to suggest that he should be pursuing a career in comedy. The whole joke in Twins was established on the poster, and Schwarzenegger should have considered himself lucky that the joke was sustained for the length of the film.
Instead, he embarked on the extremely ill-advised Kindergarten Cop (1990), a disastrous hybrid of kiddie film and cop movie. The film is a complete mess. Not only does it seem to take seriously the idea that Schwarzenegger can be the star of a family comedy, but it seems to believe he can do it in the same film that he blows away bad guys in bloody gunfights. That such a misconceived film could be greenlit was, however, indicative of the way Schwarzenegger’s career was going into overdrive at this point. In the same year he also starred in Total Recall, a mega-budget action film that did pretty well, and 1991 would see his reappearance as a kinder, gentler Terminator in Terminator 2. James Cameron’s film was an enormous hit and really marked the appearance of Schwarzenegger as a huge star.
Stallone simply couldn’t compete during this period. Lock-Up and Tango & Cash, both in 1989, were the kind of routine action films Schwarzenegger had been growing out of in the preceding years. Rocky V, in 1990, just served to underline how far Stallone had fallen: nobody was interested. There was the poorly received Oscar in 1991, and in 1992 he fell for the comedy trap and tried his luck opposite Estelle Getty in Stop! Or my Mom Will Shoot! That Stallone has starred alongside both Dolly Parton and Estelle Getty says much about the self-destructive career decisions he made over the years.
1993 – Stallone’s Year
One thing about stardom is that it’s self-correcting. When somebody hits really stratospheric heights of stardom, the hype becomes so overblown that it will usually help to bring about a fall. Schwarzenegger discovered the perils of overheating a career in 1993 with the release of The Last Action Hero. This is, in fact, not that bad a movie (though it’s not that good either) but the hype surrounding it led to a massive backlash and it was a famous flop almost before it was released. This, incidentally, also pretty much derailed the career of John McTiernan, who at the time had directed Predator, Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October, and looked like he might be one of the top few action directors of the 90s. He’s still around, but he never really got his momentum back.
At the same time, to restore balance, Stallone had a pretty good year in 1993. Cliffhanger and Demolition Man were both solid, high-profile action films. Both are actually also pretty decent, particularly if you are willing to enjoy their more excessive moments at a self-conscious, self-mocking level. Demolition Man also includes a rare in-film acknowledgement of one man by the other with some dialogue that is even more disturbing in light of Schwarzenegger’s subsequent political career. (I’ve taken the exact wording from the Imdb, so it might be slightly off, but the gist is certainly right):
Sandra Bullock: I have, in fact, perused some newsreels in the Schwarzenegger Library.
Stallone: Hold it. The Schwarzenegger Library?
Sandra Bullock: Yes. The Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Wasn’t he an actor when you…
Stallone: But how? He was President?
Sandra Bullock: Yes! Even though he wasn’t born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment which states…
Stallone: I don’ wanna know. President.
A chilling vision of the future.
1994 – Schwarzenegger’s Year
True Lies was a big enough success that 1994 has to be given to Schwarzenegger (against Stallone’s The Specialist). However, the film is another really good example of Schwarzenegger’s weak points. Firstly, he simply isn’t that good with the comedy aspects of the film. Secondly, he is completely out of place in what is written as a take on the Bond films. Directors had previously gotten around Schwarzenegger’s ridiculous physical appearance by a number of methods: casting him as a member of a super elite squad (Predator); a robot (The Terminator); or as a joke (Twins). In True Lies he is supposed to be a James Bond-style spy, with his wife believing that he is a meek computer salesman: this premise might work if you had the kind of actor you’d cast as Bond in the role. Schwarzenegger, with biceps as thick as tree trunks, simply makes the whole premise ridiculous. There was also Junior, pushing the Schwarzenegger-as-comedian idea well past its use-by date.
1995 – 1998 – Stallone’s Years
My theory starts to break down in the mid 1990s: as both men enter the twilight of their careers, it is harder to point to strong wins for either of them. What I find interesting about this is the way their film careers tailed off without anyone noticing. Schwarzenegger, in particular, was such a big name that he still seemed like a big star for a decade following True Lies, despite a fairly quiet film output.
Stallone was the only one of the two to make a film in 1995, with Assassins and Judge Dredd. While the former is an unremarkable action film and the latter an embarrassment, they form part of a post-Cliffhanger revival in Stallone’s fortunes in these years. Cliffhanger and Demolition Man had at last given him a successful film outside of the Rocky and Rambo series, and Stallone got a string of okay action vehicles up in these years: The Specialist, Assassins, and Daylight. Cop Land, in 1997, didn’t set the world on fire, but it was a reminder that Stallone did once have some credibility as a dramatic actor, something Schwarzenegger never had. Stallone also contributed enjoyable voicework for Antz in 1998, and in the absence of a 1998 entry for Schwarzenegger that’s enough to give him the year.
As I said, looking at Schwarzenegger’s resume in this period it’s interesting to note how quiet he went. Eraser, in 1996, just didn’t feel like an appropriate vehicle for an A-list star, and the same year’s Jingle all the Way – his last outright comedy – slipped by largely unnoticed. He also cropped up as a villain in Batman and Robin in 1997. This, theoretically, should have been a big part, since the villain roles in the Batman films had been the choice roles, filled by top stars (Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny De Vito, and Jim Carrey). But Schwarzenegger came on board just when the series was winding down.
1999 – 2004: Schwarzenegger’s Years
It’s becoming hard to give any credit to either man here. Schwarzenegger reappears to a certain extent with End of Days and The Sixth Day in 1999 and 2000, then limps on to Collateral Damage (delayed until 2002 following September 11). Terminator 3, in 2003, was an easy career move, but it had the whiff of Rocky IV about it – will anyone want to see Terminator 4? And in 2004 he won the governership of California, effectively leading to a semi-retirement from the movies. It’s not a strong record, but it’s better than Stallone’s resume in this period, which is full of movies hardly anyone saw (and a couple I hadn’t even heard of): Get Carter, Driven, Avenging Angelo, D-Tox, and Shade.
Neither Stallone nor Schwarzenegger really has a highly lucrative film career anymore: in the absence of really strong film projects, both have been coasting on residual star power. Now would be the perfect time for them to appear in a film together to cap off both careers. If Tarantino can get them together, it will be a rare example of synchronicity for two men who have battled over essentially the same market for more than two decades.
(I look forward, incidentally, to writing a version of this post in 2025 that compares the film careers of Vin Diesel and The Rock).