Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone are now good friends and rarely miss a chance to publicly express their mutual affection. But it wasn’t always that way: in the ’80s and ’90s, they were considered the biggest rivals in the action genre, and both have admitted that they absolutely couldn’t stand each other for two decades.
No wonder Countless studios attempted a coup by bringing the world-famous archenemies together on camera. However, it wasn’t until 2012 that this happened – with Stallone and Schwarzenegger only fighting side by side for a brief scene in “The Expendables 2”. The first film starring ‘Rocky’ and the ‘Terminator’ was released a year later – but as a long-cherished dream of many action fans was finally fulfilled, ‘Escape Plan’ was quite a disappointment: even a FILMSTARTS author and genre expert Björn Becher gave it only 2 out of 5 stars in his review.
Perhaps one of the many offers Schwarzenegger and Stallone received in the 80s and 90s would have resulted in a better film? Opposite Stallone talked about some of these projects that didn’t come to fruition – and one of them is so strange that the author of these lines would have much rather seen the outcome than the general mediocrity of “Escape Plan”…
Stallone summarizes the premise of a film that he and Schwarzenegger rejected as follows: “[Es ging darin] about two undercover investigators who – dressed in wigs and dresses – had to enter the world of femme fatales to unmask a serial killer. Can you imagine us two idiots trying to pass ourselves off as semi-attractive women?
It’s almost impossible that the ‘undercover cops in drag’ premise would have resulted in a work that would have stood the test of time – but it would most likely have been a film to remember.
Another project was offered to the two ex-combatants by the creator of “Breakfast Club”, John Hughes: inspired by a real feud, it was to be about two neighbors fighting a small war. “It was based on an incident that actually happened between me and a neighbor,” Stallone said in the interview. But unfortunately nothing came of that…