Prior to co-starring in the Expendables films, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were locked in a bitter rivalry that lasted nearly two decades. When the subject came up during an interview with Jimmy Fallon in 2014, Stallone said, “I really respect this guy. I think he’s brilliant. What he’s done, what he’s accomplished. He’s had three different careers. But, I wanted to strangle him.” Schwarzenegger would recall years later how the two would constantly try to derail each other’s careers at the height of their respective successes.
One creative way Schwarzenegger would troll Stallone back then was by pretending he was interested in terrible movies so that Stallone would jump at the chance to be in them. That, evidently, was the case with the 1992 box-office disappointment Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. The critically panned comedy featured Stallone as police sergeant Joe Bomowski, alongside Golden Girls star Estelle Getty, who played his overbearing mother, Tutti. When Joe’s mom comes to visit him, she quickly gets involved in his love life and work and eventually teams up with him to solve a murder she witnessed.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Trolled Sylvester Stallone Into Doing a Comedy He Really Regretted
Speaking with SlashFilm in 2017, Schwarzenegger confirmed that he leaked a story about wanting to do the movie even though he thought the script was really bad. He then asked for a large amount of money, knowing that the studio would go to Stallone to see if they could get him for less. As expected, Stallone called Schwarzenegger up to ask him about his interest in the film. Schwarzenegger told him that he was thinking about doing it and that it was a “brilliant idea,” and because the two were still in competition at the time, Stallone agreed to be in it under any circumstances.
As part of a Q&A with Ain’t It Cool News from 2006, Stallone listed Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and 1984’s Rhinestone as films he wished he hadn’t done (the latter was apparently another one that Schwarzenegger tricked him into being in). Stallone also went so far as to call “Stop!” Or My Mom Will Shoot his worst film ever.
“In some countries—China, I believe—running Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, once a week on government television, has lowered the birth rate to zero,” the Rocky star joked. “If they ran it twice a week, I believe in twenty years China would be extinct.”
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