That Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were rivals for years is no secret. In the 90s, they set aside their disputes. After 10 years of rivalry, they realized: This is ridiculous.
In the 80s, there was real competition for the best projects between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. The Terminator actor tricked the other action hero and attached a really bad movie to him.
The argument really started with a thrown flower pot. 10 years later, the two actors sat together and found out how silly it actually is. Nowadays they shoot action movies together.
Performance Comes from Competition
This is what it was about with the flower pot: At the 1977 Golden Globe Awards, the two met. Schwarzenegger grinned in Stallone’s direction when the Rocky films came up empty at the event. Stallone then lost his cool: He threw a flower pot in his direction. More about this you can find out from our colleagues at Moviepilot.
This is how the two feuding actors came together: In an interview with Forbes, Arnold Schwarzenegger says that the two actors realized in the 90s that 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 90s, we came together and said, this is ridiculous, let’s just work together, and we became really good friends.
Arnold Schwarzenegger via Forbes
Sylvester Stallone describes the situation in an interview with Variety on YouTube similarly: “We couldn’t stand existing in the same galaxy. Now we realize: We are the same person.”
Today they co-star in action films like The Expendables and Escape Plan.
In principle, it was good that there was this competition between Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Schwarzenegger said in May 2023 to Forbes that performance arises from competition (via forbes.com). They wanted to surpass each other. “That drove our performances and our success at the box office […] up,” said Schwarzenegger.
Sylvester Stallone stated in November 2022 to Forbes that the competition was not healthy at all. They truly “disdained” each other.
While Stallone excelled with films like Rambo, Schwarzenegger was able to catch up. Filmstarts reports on how Stallone put it succinctly: “He wanted to be number 1 and unfortunately he succeeded.”
In Terminator 2, Arnold Schwarzenegger also wanted to surpass his rival Sylvester Stallone. The screenwriter and director of the film had the idea that Arnold Schwarzenegger would appear this time not as the villain, but as a “good machine.” However, the actor was skeptical.
Because actually, Arnold Schwarzenegger had quite different, more brutal plans for his character:
Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to outdo his rival with Terminator 2 – but was stopped by the director
