The Sylvester Stallone movie almost ruined by Kirk Douglas: “He’s going to wreck our film”
Most productions would be thrilled to have Kirk Douglas on board, with the ‘Golden Age’ icon a formidable presence with gravitas to spare. However, it was decided early on that he was the wrong fit for a Sylvester Stallone favourite after concerns were raised that he was going to ruin the movie.
On the plus side, Douglas and Stallone eventually worked together on the 1991 crime comedy Oscar, even if there was a downside when the former ended up punching the latter. Maybe it was a case of the legend letting his frustrations out after behind-the-scenes issues hastened his departure from one of Sly’s best.
The entire production of First Blood was fairly shambolic, with every nameworthy leading man in Hollywood turning down the part of John Rambo until Stallone signed on, and even then, he was genuinely concerned it had the potential to be a career killer.
The script underwent heavy revisions and rewrites, and an entirely new ending was shot for reasons that existed somewhere between sending the audience home happy and leaving the door ajar for a franchise. That finale is powerful stuff, but it almost happened with Stallone pouring his heart out to Douglas.
Richard Crenna became a staple of the Rambo saga as Colonel Trautman, a part that wasn’t his until very late in the day. As director Ted Kotcheff recalled to Filmmaker, Douglas had a bizarre way of carrying himself, which increasingly convinced the director that his involvement was never going to work.
“He had a very disagreeable habit of talking about himself in the third person,” the filmmaker revealed. “And he’d say, ‘Kirk doesn’t say these lines. Kirk doesn’t like these lines’. Or he’d want somebody else’s line and say, ‘That’s a feeling the sheriff would have, not you’. He’d say, ‘Doesn’t matter, it’s a great line. The sheriff doesn’t say it. Kirk Douglas says it. Kirk Douglas should have this line.'”
Oddball habits aside, Stallone tried to persevere because he was a huge fan of Douglas’ boxing drama, Champion, and he and Kotcheff “agreed that Kirk Douglas was a big star and would help our film,” so they tried to acquiesce to his demands until the director decided that he’d have enough and went to the producers demanding they get rid of him.
“Boys, I know you want this guy,” he told Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna. “But he’s going to wreck our film. Not only artistically but monetarily, because he’s going to slow production down. I’m telling you, he’s going to put two weeks on the schedule arguing about the lines.”
Kotcheff then approached Douglas and told him in no uncertain terms that he was shooting the script as written with no deviations, and he could either accept it or move on. Bowing out by once again referring to himself in the third person, he said, “Kirk’s leaving,” and that was that.
