It’s no secret that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were rivals for years. In the ’90s, they put the disputes aside. They realized after 10 years of rivalry: That’s silly.
In the 80s there was a real competition for the best projects between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. So the Terminator actor tricked the other action hero and framed him with a really bad movie.
The argument really started with a thrown flower pot. 10 years later, the two actors sat together and realized how silly that actually is. Nowadays they make action movies together.
“Sarah Connor” thought Arnold Schwarzenegger was just a bodybuilder pretending to be an actor
More videos
Competition breeds performance
That was what the flower pot was all about: The two met at the 1977 Golden Globe Awards. Schwarzenegger grinned at Stallone as the Rocky films walked away empty-handed at the awards. Stallone then burst the collar: He threw a flower pot in his direction. You can find out more about this from our colleagues at Moviepilot.
This is how the brawlers got together: Arnold Schwarzenegger tells Forbes that in the ’90s the two actors realized it was all actually silly:
But he just saw me as an enemy, just in his own little vision, and I saw him as an enemy, and I had to get rid of him and he had to get rid of me, and that was it. Then in the 90’s we got together and said this is silly, let’s just work together and we became really good friends.
Arnold Schwarzenegger via Forbes
Sylvester Stallone describes the situation similarly in an interview with Variety on YouTube: “We couldn’t face existing in the same galaxy. Now we realize: we are the same person.”
Today they play the leading roles together in action films such as The Expendables and Escape Plan.
In principle, it was good that there was this competition between Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Schwarzenegger told Forbes in May 2023 that achievement comes from competition (via forbes.com). They wanted to outdo each other. “That has our performances and our success at the box office […] driven up,” says Schwarzenegger.
Sylvester Stallone told Forbes in November 2022 that the competition wasn’t healthy at all. They really “loathed” each other.
Although Stallone did well with films like Rambo, Schwarzenegger was able to catch up. Filmstarts reports how Stallone put it: “He wanted to be number 1 and unfortunately he made it.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger also wanted to surpass his rival Sylvester Stallone in Terminator 2. The screenwriter and director of the film came up with the idea that this time Arnold Schwarzenegger would no longer play as a villain, but as a “good machine” occurs. But the actor was skeptical.
Because Arnold Schwarzenegger actually had completely different, more brutal plans for his film character:
Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to trump his rival with Terminator 2 – but was stopped by the director