There was a time when a listener who was in a fighting mood and wanted to irritate Carlos Pumares just had to ask him who he preferred: Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. The recently deceased Stardust host's reaction usually consisted of one of his recurring tantrums and several outbursts, against the two stars and also against the brave person who suggested such “stupidity”. It was a time, the 1980s and 1990s, when both actors became the most sought-after in Hollywood and their films achieved the highest grosses. They competed in everything from collection to the number of henchmen killed on screen. “We were like little children. We competed to see who could use the biggest knife or gun in one arm, who had the most muscle, the best definition and the least body fat. “We fought over stupid things,” Schwarzenegger explains in Sly, the documentary produced by Stallone himself in which he recounts his life, and also in Arnold, the documentaries in which Stallone appears and tells more or less the same thing about this fight . ongoing. The premiere of both productions last year coincided with the first feature film series in which both starred. The old rivals, now in their 70s and so friendly, try to dust themselves off and get back to their old fight, now on TV.
Stallone started the race to renew his laurels on the small screen with the premiere at the end of 2022 of Tulsa King, available on Sky Showtime, a police series with traces of comedy and light appearance, but which becomes darker as the episodes pass. and nuances – it's not for nothing that his creator is Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone) and the list of screenwriters includes Terence Winter (Boardwalk Empire) – in which he plays an old gangster who is exiled by his bosses to Tulsa (Oklahoma), where he old-school tricks, confronted with a modern age in which everyone seems like a soft man in comparison, are enough for him to become the master of the city. And last spring, Schwarzenneger released “Fubar” on Netflix, a pyrotechnic and crude action comedy – written by Nick Santora (Reacher) – in which he plays a family man and super spy, a character similar to the hero of one of his biggest hits: Daring Lies, the finds out that his daughter works for the same agency as him and, like him, she had hidden it from the entire family. At the same time, the platform released Arnold, three chapters in which the actor himself narrates his life, and months later it released Sly, a feature film designed like that of its old competitor in the flourishing subgenre of hagiographic documentary, in which the person portrayed is not alone is the main statement, but rather participates in the production, in which titles such as They Call Me Magic Johnson, Beckham, Legacy: The LA Lakers by Jerry Buss are embedded – a direct reaction that the franchise itself promoted to the HBO series Time of victory – or this exaggerated ambition, about C. Tangana's last tour.
Sylvester Stallone, in a promotional image for “Tulsa King.”
The similarities and differences between the two productions function as correlates of those between their two protagonists. Schwarzenegger was born into a modest family in the small Austrian town of Thal in 1947 and, like Stallone, who was born a year earlier in an equally modest house in New York, always had a strained relationship with his father, who was a member of the NSDAP. The protagonist of Rocky was a barber with a military background, and in Sly his son suggests that the treatment he received was brutal.
As children and teenagers, both were fascinated by the peplums of American bodybuilders who emigrated to Italy to appear on the screen in the role of Hercules and other colossi. But Sylvester always wanted to devote himself to cinema, and Arnold became a bodybuilder and became the most successful actor in history in the 1970s, while his future rival tried to build a career as an actor, which only really took off after he sold his script for Rocky, for which he was nominated for an Oscar in 1977, it was a condition that he had to be the protagonist. When Schwarzenegger decided to make the serious leap to the big screen, the New Yorker was already a Hollywood giant. Conan the Barbarian, the film that made the bodybuilder a movie superstar, was released in theaters in March 1982. Rocky III came two months later and Cornered after six months. The Terminator was scheduled to arrive in the fall of 1984. Rambo in the spring of 1985. The battle continued, even though Schwarzenegger chose from the start to be a machine of destruction, a role tailored for someone who had been predicted would never succeed in front of the camera . because his acting skills were almost nil. While Stallone, since his first incarnation as the Italian Colt, was initially anchored in the role of the underdog and loser who, despite all odds, triumphs in the end. “Things happen in my films that don’t normally happen in real life. “I’m in the business of hope,” he says. That's why he rejected the idea that John Rambo died at the end of “Cornered” as in the novel on which the film is based. “Back then, 20,000 Vietnam veterans committed suicide every year,” he recalls in the documentary. “And I had no intention of contributing to it.” What came next, the leap into increasingly testosterone-fueled and crazier action and the transformation of his heroes into Reagan icons, was the result of Stallone's inability to stop in time (“I don't know how to “should stop,” he admits). , the crazy race with its European rival and its economic greed. “I wanted to make the genre something that was lucrative and went around the world. And that’s how it was,” he says.
The jump to comedy was the most extravagant twist in this eternal battle, and it only worked out well for Schwarzenegger, who came forward. Both Sly and Arnold remember something that the two of them often laughed and said on television: When the Austrian received the script for Stop or My Mother Shoots, he immediately rejected it, but acted as if he was interested. Stallone took the bait and accepted the role to prevent his competitor from further success. The film was one of the most resounding failures of his career – with audiences and even critics, which is saying something.
Arnold also goes into detail about his protagonist's jump into politics and even recalls that in 2003, during the election campaign, the Los Angeles Times published statements from six women who accused him of sexual harassment. Schwarzenegger admitted he “sometimes misbehaved” and “did things he saw as a game” but recognized they had offended people to whom he apologized. Since Me Too was still missing, it was enough for him: he became governor of California with 48% of the vote and was re-elected four years later with an absolute majority. In the documentary, the protagonist even confesses his infidelity and even talks about the secret son that cost him his marriage.
In Sly, however, there is hardly any reference to the death of Stallone's first-born son. The intrusions into his private life end there and in the mentions of his relationship with his father and the search in public appreciation for a replacement for the paternal recognition that the actor never felt. Ultimately, the parallel lives of the two rivals can and are told as stories of success and personal growth, reflecting the power of believing in oneself and illustrating the fantasy of the American Dream that Stallone never deviates from in his underdog stories. Although Schwarzenegger, more generous than his colleague, recognizes that he would not have gotten to where he is without the help of many people who bet on him. And against all odds, he not only denies that he is what he calls a self-made man, but he also says that the idea disgusts him because it is wrong.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the Fubar series.
The television adventure of both stars, a far cry from the status they once had, but whose legacy is obvious – before John Wick's body count there was their own, and without his steel muscles we wouldn't have built the banknotes of Vin Diesel or Dwayne Johnson bucketloads, shows signs of sequel. Both Tulsa King and Fubar will have a second season. And since there are no hints about his personal life in “Sly”, its protagonist also premiered “The Stallone Family” on Sky Showtime, a reality show in which he stars alongside his third wife Jennifer Flavin and their three daughters have in common, and in the one who acts as a lovable patriarch.
Of course, the two giants also have other open fronts. The New Yorker manages a portfolio full of film projects, not only in front of the camera but also behind it (although he is not new: he has directed eight features and written the scripts for more than twenty). Without giving up the screen, the Austrian has long used his fame to launch political reflections and inspirational messages on the Internet, and has now taken another step as a guru with the publication of “The Power of Being Valuable (Active Company)” Book of Self-help in which he gives advice on how to be successful in life. They may no longer be around to wield incredible one-armed machine guns, but they're still going strong.
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