Sylvester Stallone Regrets Making 6 Specific Movies
Sylvester Stallone likes many of his movies, but he regrets these six from his past.
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There is no doubting Sylvester Stallone’s impact on the movie industry. As a lead or supporting actor, Stallone has brought in well over $5 billion at the box office. Rocky is probably one of the most well-known characters in the history of film while others, such as Rambo, John Spartan, and Barney Ross, rank high up there as well.
But over Stallone’s six-decade career, there was sure to be a stinker or two. When asked in a Q&A session, Stallone listed off a number of films he wishes he never made. So, according to the man himself, here are the six films he regrets making, in no particular order of dread.
D-TOX (aka EYE SEE YOU)
For the entirety of his career, one genre of film Sylvester Stallone has avoided is the horror genre. D-Tox, which was renamed Eye See You, is perhaps the closest Stallone has come to an actual horror film. The movie was a 2002 release that was more a psychological thriller with elements of slasher horror mixed in.
Sylvester Stallone plays FBI agent Jake Malloy who, with a group of police officers, are stranded at a snow-covered Wyoming rehab facility. Malloy is there for his alcohol addiction but among the other patients is a serial killer with a grudge against Malloy. When patients and colleagues begin to die off brutally, Malloy knows he is in for the fight of his life.
The movie was not well received. Stallone’s attempt to branch out into the horror genre didn’t sit well with fans either. Perhaps both were reasons why Stallone included this as one of the six least-liked films he feels he’s shot.
DRIVEN
Sylvester Stallone put a lot of himself into this film as he performed triple duty as the producer, writer, and actor. He brought in Burt Reynolds to co-star with him which tells the story of a hotshot young race car driver Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue) who starts to lose his focus. Stallone plays Joe Tanto, a former racing star, who is brought in to help Bly regain his focus and standing on the racetrack.
Driven was a critical and box office failure and came at a time when Stallone’s movies weren’t moving the box office needle. Again, probably the reason why he considers this movie to be one of his regrets.
GET CARTER
Sylvester Stallone starred in this Stephen Kay remake of the 1971 British film of the same name. Michael Caine, who played the original Carter, co-stars with Stallone in this movie, playing Cliff Brumby. Like the previous two on Stallone’s list, this movie also was a critical failure and a complete box office bomb. It pulled in a mere $20 million on an estimated $64 million budget.
In the remake, Stallone plays Carter, a Las Vegas mob enforcer who travels back to his hometown after his brother is mysteriously killed in a car crash. As Carter begins to investigate, he begins to suspect his brother was murdered, and everything ties back to mob bosses and a crucial CD.
Get Carter falls into the same box-office bomb, Stallone regret scenario.
STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT
The name alone is reason enough for Sylvester Stallone to dread this movie. The story behind it is sure to induce a chuckle or two though. Apparently, as Stallone has said and was confirmed by his then-rival Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie was initially intended to be an Arnie movie which, when he read the script, immediately passed on, knowing it was not going to be good.
Producers then took the script to Stallone and even though they were rivals at the time, Sylvester Stallone reached out to Arnie, telling them he was asked to be in the movie, but he wasn’t sure if he should. Arnie then faked interest in taking the film if Stallone was to pass on it, prompting Stallone to immediately sign on the dotted line. The rest is history. Thankfully, they are now good friends.
The movie rightfully bombed and as Stallone described to a fan, “The worst film I’ve ever made by far… maybe one of the worst films in the entire solar system, including alien productions we’ve never seen… a flatworm could write a better script than STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT.”
RHINESTONE
Sylvester Stallone has only wonderful things to say about Dolly Parton. He takes full blame for the failures of the film, one that attempted to showcase Stallone as a taxicab driver turned country singer. It didn’t work and even though Dolly offered up her ample “support”, the movie fell flat.
The reason Sylvester Stallone feels it was a bad make for him was mainly because he and director Bob Clark, whose resume includes Black Christmas, Murder by Decree, Porky’s, and A Christmas Story, simply had too many creative differences to overcome. Stallone admits that “the film went in a direction that literally shattered my internal corn meter into smithereens. I would have done many things differently… silly comedy didn’t work for me.”
This brings us to the last film on his list, one involving “silly comedy.”
OSCAR
First off, this is a major guilty pleasure. Oscar finds Sylvester Stallone as Depression-era mob boss Snaps Provolone who promises his dying father that he will give up his horrible life of crime and go straight. The movie is immediately a farce, a screwball comedy that harkens back to those capers of the ‘40s and ‘50s. It boasts a wonderfully talented cast that includes Ornelia Muti, Peter Riegert, Don Ameche, Tim Curry, Marisa Tomei, a hilarious Chaz Palminteri, and Martin Ferrero and Harry Shearer as the Finucci Brothers, two tailors who are mistaken as hitmen.
As Sylvester Stallone has noted over his career, he and comedy don’t necessarily mix and the mediocre reviews that Oscar brought perhaps led him to believe this film was regrettable. Don’t let Stallone fool you on this film though, it is an underrated comedy (if you like your comedy served in screwball fashion), one directed by the late John Landis.
So, there you go. Stallone on Stallone’s worst movies. Have you seen any of them and do you agree with his assessment?
