Comic Con paraded out all of the stars, old and young. Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis have films to promote, so they joined exuberant fanboys at the San Diego Comic Con.
While discussing the decline of the 80’s action star in a Los Angeles Times interview, Sylvester Stallone actually blamed Tim Burton’s Batman film for the demise of action films.
“It was that first Batman movie,” he said, referring to the 1989 film starring Michael Keaton, an actor never known for biceps. “The action movies changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on. It was the beginning of a new era. The visual took over. The special effects became more important than the single person. That was the beginning of the end.”
“I wish I had thought of Velcro muscles myself… “I didn’t have to go to the gym for all those years.”
Incredibly unfair in my humble opinion.
I know the superhero films turned Tobey Maguire into Spider-Man and Johnny Depp entertained us with the Pirates of the Caribbean series, but it’s hardly the real demise of the films.
Reality check: we had enough of Stallone and the plot actioners of the 80’s and 90’s.
The endless slew of mindless action films starring Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger (yes, many were entertaining) also meant greedy Hollywood moguls pushed other brainless fodder with brawny leads such as Carl Weathers in “Action Jackson” or Dolph Lungren in, well everything that Dolph Lundgren did.
Chuck Norris was also still cranking out films (“Code of Silence”) to hog space with Sly and Arnold.
Stallone is seated at the nucleus of a newly organized band of tough guys for the upcoming film ” The Expendables” with this cast list: Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger appear in the film (briefly), Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Jason Statham and Jet Li. There’s also a former NFL player (Terry Crews), a pro-wrestling icon (Steve Austin), an Ultimate Fighting Championship star (Randy Couture) and oh yeah…Dolph Lundgren.
“Each of us chose a different style. Arnold was king of the one-liners. Bruce was witty and talkative; he had all these verbal pirouettes. And I was pretty silent. My guys seemed haunted, a lot of the time, but Bruce’s guys were usually Teflon. Arnold was relentless, like this perfect machine. People asked if I could have played the Terminator. Are you kidding? Not a chance, I never could have played the Terminator.” – Stallone
Audiences had their fare share of Sly and the gang during the 80’s and it’s sad to hear Stallone harboring some baggage from the transition. While Arnold did move on to more comedies, he managed several action successes during the 90’s: “Total Recall”, “Terminator 2”, “True Lies”, and “Eraser”
A muscle bound Batman or Spider-Man simply wouldn’t have made any sense than Stallone’s role in “Judge Dredd” or “Demolition Man”
