Arnold Schwarzenegger tricked Sylvester Stallone into doing flop movie during peak rivalry
Arnold Schwarzenegger had a little slyness up his sleeve in the early ‘90s when he was trying to usurp Sylvester Stallone as the more famous action star.
In an upcoming special, "TMZ Presents Arnold & Sly: Rivals, Friends, Icons," the former governor of California and legendary "Terminator" actor sits down alongside the "Rocky" mogul to reveal how he tricked Stallone into taking a part in the 1992 film, "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot."
Anticipating the movie would flop – it did – Schwarzenneger and his agent concocted a plan. The two actors battled in the ‘80s for Hollywood’s top action star."First of all, when we talk about the movie, I didn't talk him into [it] because I never talked to him about it," Schwarzenegger prefaced. "But it was very clear that his agent was telling my agent, ‘Look, Sly is interested in doing it, but I don’t know if it's the right thing for him. Let me know what you guys are thinking.' And then my agent said, ‘Well you know, Arnold really loves it. I think it’s fantastic.'"
"So then I called Roger Spottiswoode, who was the director, who just did the James Bond movie, so he was kind of the hot director [at the time]," Schwarzenegger, 76, admitted.