Sylvester Stallone Called This Comedy The Worst Movie In His Filmography

If you've paid any kind of attention to Sylvester Stallone's film career for any amount of time, you know he's made some absolutely terrible movies. To be fair, some were out of necessity. Prior to becoming a big screen superstar in 1976 with "Rocky," a briefly homeless Stallone starred in a quickie pornographic romance called "The Party at Kitty and Stud's" (which was rereleased post-stardom as "The Italian Stallion"). Around the same time, he also appeared in the low-budget terrorism thriller "No Place to Hide," which was recut as a comedy and dumped into video stores in 1990 with the title "A Man Called... Rainbo."

For the most part, however, Stallone has been the author of his own cinematic misery. After the wild critical and commercial success of "Rocky" (which beat out all-timers "Network," "All the President's Men," and "Taxi Driver" for Best Picture), the star went on a decade-plus tear during which he could get anything greenlit. At first, he put his newfound box office weight behind Norman Jewison's union drama "F.I.S.T." and the likable pro wrestling drama "Paradise Alley" (which also served as his directorial debut). When both movies failed to catch fire theatrically, though, Stallone focused strictly on franchises and broad genre plays.

As his box office exploded with "Rocky II," "Rocky III," and "First Blood," so did his ego. In 1983, he directed "Staying Alive," an utterly hubristic sequel to "Saturday Night Fever" where he basically transformed John Travolta into a surrogate for himself as a Broadway musical star. Then, a year after that, he co-starred with Dolly Parton in the country music comedy "Rhinestone." His fans tolerated the former, but rejected the latter with extreme prejudice. Stallone took note and retreated to action movies, the worst of which, "Cobra," is a luridly entertaining trashterpiece that I've probably watched more times than "Casablanca."

Playing it safe was smart short-term for Stallone, but the fierce competitor in him couldn't help but notice that Arnold Schwarzenegger was threatening to dethrone him as Hollywood's action king. And when the Austrian Oak successfully segued into comedy, Sly really started sweating it.

Schwarzenegger's superstar trajectory is fascinating. John Milius' "Conan the Barbarian" made him a viable movie star (despite the thick accent), but his hits up until 1988 were all R-rated and not a single one cracked $100 million at the box office. When Walter Hill's "Red Heat" did merely okay business during the summer of 1988, some wondered if Schwarzenegger's musclebound appeal had a hard ceiling.

Then came Ivan Reitman's "Twins." Released during the 1988 holiday movie season, the comedy paired Schwarzenegger with Danny DeVito and grossed over $200 million worldwide. Critics weren't blown away (it currently holds a Metacritic score of 50), but audiences fell hard for the unlikely star pairing and found Schwarzenegger's big-hearted Julius completely adorable. Arnold suddenly had another gear. After "Twins," he strung together three blockbusters in a row with "Total Recall," "Kindergarten Cop," and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," at which point he was the king of the box office.

Hesitant to move outside of his comfort zone after the aforementioned disasters, Stallone put his head down and treaded water with "Rambo III," "Lock Up," "Tango & Cash," and "Rocky V." None of these did blockbuster business. With his two franchises clearly in commercial decline, the star knew he had to tweak his image to remain an A-list movie star.

Cognizant of what comedies had done for Schwarzenegger's career, Stallone opted to star in John Landis' screwball gangster lark "Oscar." The screenplay by Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland wasn't exactly on the level of its 1930s and 1940s inspirations, but it was suitably bustling and stuffed with colorful characters that gave pros like Don Ameche, Tim Curry, Peter Riegert, and a then unknown Marisa Tomei (who steals the movie) plenty of room to have a ball. The supporting cast does their best to keep Stallone light on his feet, and, to his credit, he is game to mess around, but the star's fans weren't in the mood for a prohibition era yuk-fest.

"Oscar" made it six straight underperformers for Stallone (counting 1987's arm-wrestling opus "Over the Top"), which meant he had to proceed with extreme caution. With the "Rocky" and "Rambo" safety net cut out from under him, a meat-and-potatoes action flick might've been the right call — and it would be two years later with Renny Harlin's "Cliffhanger." But Sly was determined to outdo Schwarzenegger on the comedy front, so he signed on to make one of the worst films ... ever, really.

Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, knew he was in Stallone's head at this juncture of their rivalry (which, per Sly, wasn't friendly), so he did something truly diabolical that nearly killed his competitor's career for good.

In 1989, in the midst of the spec screenplay boom, writer Blake Snyder sold a script titled "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" for $500,000. The action-comedy read like a hybrid of "Lethal Weapon" and "Golden Girls," which meant execs had visions of every demographic from 20-something dudes to elderly folks packing the nation's theaters for an unprecedented multi-quadrant blockbuster.

Schwarzenegger's proven facility for comedy placed him in pole position to land this prized project. So, when he read the script and realized it was shockingly awful, he didn't turn it down outright. Instead, as he explained in a 2017 Beyond Fest Q&A, Schwarzenegger let word get out around Hollywood that he had "tremendous interest," knowing this would get back to Stallone. Sure enough, Sly found out, and hopped on the project.

Directed by capable journeyman Roger Spottiswoode (who would end up working with Schwarzenegger on the merely meh "The 6th Day") and co-starring Estelle Getty in the eponymous role, "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" was savaged by critics and avoided by moviegoers. It grossed $28 million in the United States and deeply wounded Stallone. Again, Sly rebounded with "Cliffhanger" the following year, but to this day he regrets having made the movie. In 2006, he told AICN readers that "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" is "maybe one of the worst films in the entire solar system, including alien productions we've never seen." Four years later, as related by GQ, he proclaimed, "If you ever want someone to confess to murder, just make him or her sit through that film. They will confess to anything after 15 minutes!"

I've seen the movie, and while I agree with Stallone that it is total garbage, I can confidently say that he'll never make a worse movie than "Rambo: Last Blood."