The 1990s movie that left Sylvester Stallone’s career “pretty well cooked” for 15 years
It’s been 50 years since Sylvester Stallone first broke through in Hollywood, and if he were ever to fade into irrelevance and disappear from the industry, it would have happened a long time ago.
As far as careers go, his is basically unkillable, and it’s nothing short of remarkable. He’s made so many bad movies, starred in so many box office bombs, and won so many Razzies that it would have permanently exiled anyone else from being given so much as another opportunity, but he’s still going.
Every star has their ups and downs, especially one who’s been in the business as long as Stallone, and some of those setbacks have been more perilous than others. He’s had a number one movie in the United States in every decade since the 1970s, but the next crime against cinema is never too far behind.
As far as he’s concerned, things reached a nadir as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, and what should have been a slam-dunk turned out to be the moment that pushed him off the cliff instead when Rocky V failed to come anywhere close to matching the critical and commercial heights of its predecessors.
“It didn’t work, and it was devastating to me,” the star acknowledged. “Every Rocky had been more successful than the last, and then it just plummeted. That was 1990, so for almost 15 years, I was pretty well cooked.” That sounds awfully defeatist, but then again, he hardly did himself any favours, either.
Sly followed up the fifth outing for ‘The Italian Stallion’ with Oscar and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, the latter of which earned him a Razzie nomination for ‘Worst Actor’, a prize he won for the latter. They both bombed, too, never mind being torn to shreds by critics, so things were hardly looking up.
He did rebound slightly with Cliffhanger and Demolition Man, both of which made money, but after that, it was right back to churning out shitty action flick after shitty action flick. Even Cop Land, easily the best film he made during those lean years, didn’t have the desired effect, with Stallone acknowledging that, despite its qualities, it did absolutely nothing for his position in the business.
The Get Carter remake, D-Tox, Driven, Avenging Angelo, and Shade continued his losing streak to such an extent that the Academy Award-nominated actor and screenwriter had every reason to believe that his luck had permanently run out, his career’s tank was out of gas, and he was, in fact, cooked.
It’s always handy to have a franchise to fall back on, though, even if it’s the one that killed you to begin with. When he pitched 2006’s Rocky Balboa, he was told by the studio that “we’re going to be the laughing stock of the industry if we make it,” but he got the last laugh when it ended his fallow period and restored him to something close to his former glories.
