Although Sylvester Stallone initially struggled to get his career off the ground, he finally found success after writing and playing the titular character in 1976’s Rocky. The actor penned five sequels over the following years, cementing his position as one of America’s biggest stars.
By the 1980s, Stallone was also known for portraying the action hero John Rambo in First Blood and its subsequent sequels, all of which the actor co-wrote. Despite a celebrated tenure, Stallone’s early roles were mainly uncredited, such as minor appearances in Klute, starring Jane Fonda, Woody Allen’s Bananas, and Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. Meanwhile, he ushered in movie theatres, immersing himself in a world he would later dominate.
With a keen interest in writing, his scripts eventually allowed him to harness the career he’d always wanted. Stallone became one of Hollywood’s biggest action heroes. However, the release of Rocky V in 1990 was a box-office failure, widely considered the worst instalment in the franchise. The following year, Stallone starred in another box-office bomb – Oscar. The period comedy, directed by An American Werewolf in London creator John Landis, was a critical and commercial flop, earning Stallone a Golden Raspberry nomination for ‘Worst Actor’.
The movie was a rare instance of Stallone performing a comedic role rather than his typical tough-guy persona demonstrated in the Rocky and Rambo franchises. Despite underperforming at the box office, Stallone attempted another comedy in 1992 with Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Roger Spottiswoode’s buddy cop flick.
After grossing $70million worldwide, the movie earned unanimously negative reviews. Stallone signed onto the project after he heard that his infamous action rival, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was interested in the part. However, in 2017, the latter revealed that he feigned interest in the movie to lure Stallone towards the “really bad” script.
During a panel at Beyond Fest, he explained: “I read the script. It was so bad. You know, I’ve also done some movies that went right in the toilet, right? That were bad. But this was really bad. So I went in – this was during our war – I said to myself, ‘I’m going to leak out that I have tremendous interest.’ I know the way it works in Hollywood. I would then ask for a lot of money. So then they’d say, ‘Let’s go give it to Sly. Maybe we can get him for cheaper.’”
Schwarzenegger added: “He went for it! He totally went for it. A week later, I heard about it, ‘Sly is signing now to do this movie.’ And I said, [pumps fist] ‘Yes!’” The result was a terribly unsuccessful movie on all fronts. For Stallone, the film is one that he’d much rather forget.
In 2006, Stallone discussed Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, stating: “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. In some countries – China, I believe – running Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot once a week on government television has lowered the birth rate to zero. If they ran it twice a week, I believe in twenty years China would be extinct. Does that put it in perspective?”