Sylvester Stallone Says He Was Tricked Into Making 3 Movies

Sylvester Stallone is saying he got fooled into making three specific movies.

By Rick Gonzales | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

sylvester stallone

Ever since he shocked the world with his 1976 Academy Award-nominated boxing film Rocky, Sylvester Stallone has been one of Hollywood’s biggest draws. The action hero has been part of a number of big franchises from Rocky to Rambo to The Expendables. His star power (though waning in his later career) is undeniable. There have been, though, a few hiccups along the way.

These “hiccups”, so to speak, were not necessarily of his doing, though the ultimate blame could go to Stallone for signing on the dotted line. According to Sylvester Stallone, a few of his movies he was tricked into joining, one famous trickster was former rival Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The two massive action stars constantly battled it out for box office king throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. One movie, in particular, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot was first offered to Schwarzenegger but upon getting the script, he immediately knew it was going to fail hard. But with the competition between the two burning bright, Schwarzenegger pretended to be interested in taking the role, knowing that Sylvester Stallone would be chomping at the bit if something happened and Schwarzenegger could not take the role. As it turned out, Schwarzenegger never had interest but told Stallone he was. When the studio asked Stallone to take the part, he jumped at the chance.

stop or my mom will shoot poster

The movie was a major bomb. It co-starred Estelle Getty as tough cop Sylvester Stallone’s mother who gets him in trouble by trying to replace his weapon with an illegal one after she ruined the first. According to Stallone via Ain’t It Cool News it was “one of the worst films in the entire solar system, including alien productions we’ve never seen”

The Specialist was another movie Sylvester Stallone says he was tricked into making. The 1994 movie co-starred Sharone Stone who enlists Stallone, playing hitman Ray Quick, to help her avenge the death of her parents. While the movie was a box office hit, critics slammed it. To get Stallone to take the part in the movie, the producers apparently told him that if he didn’t decide within 15 minutes to take the part, they were giving it to Warren Beatty. Stallone gave in to the pressure, even though Beatty was never being considered.

The third movie Sylvester Stallone says he was tricked into performing in was called An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn. The movie was a mockumentary and told the story of a director who is trying to rid his name of a very bad movie. The movie (in the movie) was called Trio and starred Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jackie Chan but in the script that Stallone got, it starred himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis. Thinking those two would be joining him on set, he signed on immediately. Imagine his surprise when Goldberg and Chan arrived.

king shark suicide squad

With all Sylvester Stallone has accomplished in his lengthy movie career, he can afford a few bombs. He has seen the lows of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Rhinestone and Get Carter but always seems to come out fine on the other side. Recently Stallone has gone back to his Rocky roots portraying the aging boxer in Creed and its sequel Creed II. While the spotlight was brought back to Rocky Balboa, it doesn’t appear that Stallone will be going back for a third round of Creed.

Up next for Sylvester Stallone is The Suicide Squad as he is voicing King Shark. On deck for the action star is Samaritan, where he plays an aging superhero thought to have gone missing after losing an epic battle twenty years earlier. Then Stallone plans on going back to Barney Ross in The Expendables 4. Chances are he was not tricked into starring in any of these films.