Hollywood has a lot of rivalries between actors. Whether it is a small rivalry or a big one, there is no shortage of them. One of the most prominent rivalries is between none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Both of them have done various movies that stand right next to each other and dominate the fanbase subsequently.
Their back and forth has been one fans have been witnessing for a long time. It has also appeared to be rather an interesting topic of conversation as both of them were competing against each other throughout their careers. However, what many might have not realized is the massive impact this feud had on some of their greatest movies.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Movie Was Changed Because Of His Rival
Two movies were being released side by side, Commando and Rambo II. One starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and the other had Sylvester Stallone. Due to the competition between the two actors, Steven E. de Souza and Mark L. Lester both knew what they had to do.
“Mark L. Lester had seen a sneak peek of Rambo II and he said Stallone kills a million guys so we have to kill more guys. So what happened was, Mark went over-budget putting in this giant scene where this private army gets wiped out. The random shooting of hundreds of guys was not in the script. So they burned up the budget and then said we don’t have the money to film what you wrote.”
They were rapidly changing scenes to make sure Commando was better than Rambo II. The script was constantly changing in order to maintain competition. They wanted to make the movie much bigger than Stallone’s and that pushed them over budget. However, the impact these changes had on the ending was not something de Souza had been expecting.
So Many Changes In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Movie Changed Its Ending Too
According to the scriptwriter, adding so many changes to the movie ultimately also forced them to change the ending. They were not as happy about it because of how much they had to drift away from the script, but there was nothing they could do about it.
“I said let’s do it in a basement, so the basement you see in the movie is an actual basement at Fox. … We sent one of [producer] Joel Silver’s assistants down there and they were reporting back what was down there, and I was drawing a picture of it on the back of an envelope and dictating what could work and what lines to put in.”
They barely had enough time to come up with a new ending, twenty-four hours to be exact. The budget cuts led to the conclusion of being shot in a basement rather than on a private island.