Arnie sabotaged Sly

How Terminator drove his buddy into a movie flop

Former arch-enemies, now best friends: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone ...(Bild: www.PPS.at)

Nowadays, they are great friends. But at the height of their careers as action heroes in the 80s and 90s, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were bitter rivals.

For both of them, everything was a competition - who had the best body, who got the best scripts, who could shoot with the biggest guns and who could send more people to the eternal hunting grounds in the movie. In 1991, Arnie managed to lay a big cuckoo's egg in his opponent's nest.

To be more precise, he was responsible for Stallone's involvement in the action comedy "Stop or my mother shoots" with "Golden Girl" Estelle Getty, which was torn apart by critics and viewers alike.

Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty in "Stop or My Mother Will Shoot(Bild: mptv / picturedesk.com)

Stallone tricked
In a preview of the documentary "Arnold & Sly: Rivals, Friends, Icons" on "TMZ", the "Terminator" reveals that he had used his acting agent as bait: "He dropped in front of Sly's agent seemingly off to the side, Arnold is negotiating with director Roger Spottiswoode. He really likes the project and I think he'll say yes".

The result was exactly what Schwarzenegger had hoped for: "Sylvester couldn't let it go. His agent immediately called the studio and said you have to give the role to Sly, not Schwarzenegger. And they did it."

Former arch-enemies, now best friends: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone ...(Bild: www.PPS.at)

Stallone's "cinema bomb" was a win for Arnie: "I thought at the time that there was only one way for me to catch up with Sly - if he stumbled across a movie. Which is why I decided to put that stumbling block in his way myself."

Worst actor
"Stop - or my mother shoots" took just 70 million dollars at the box office worldwide and Stallone was "awarded" the anti-Oscar "Golden Raspberry" for worst leading actor.

Today, both friends laugh about it. Sly's response to Schwarzenegger's anecdote is a grin and the remark: "Can you be any more Machiavelli than you are? Unbelievable". To which the "Styrian Oak" hails him: "He's a wonderful person and we're inseparable today!"