“I Blame Sylvester Stallone for Screwing Up”: Writer Who Gave Arnold Schwarzenegger a $98.3 Million Blockbuster Makes a Shocking Revelation

During his rise in the action film industry, Arnold Schwarzenegger faced the greatest competition from Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone. Thus, the actors emerged as the greatest rivals in the genre. Around the 1980s, the former athlete and Stallone were working on distinct movies, Commando and the Rambo franchise, respectively. This resulted in intense competition, which ultimately ended up ruining Arnie’s ending.

Despite having grossed a $98.3 million fortune, the writer of Commando, Steven E. de Souza made a blunt revelation on the movie’s end fight scene, per a fresh interview by Radio Times. He claimed that the epic rivalry between the action stars resulted in De Souza’s original scene getting scrapped. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone’s rivalry did permanent damage

As per the interview, the ending of Commando wouldn’t have been what it is, if not for Sylvester Stallone. Days ahead of the movie’s special screening today at the London Action Festival, the writer recalled his experience and shared that the feature would’ve been a greater success if the rivalry hadn’t taken a toll. 

“At the time it was Rambo versus Commando and those two had a rivalry for a long time, but Arnold predicted that people would still be talking about this film because it did not take itself seriously and was self-aware. And Rambo took himself very seriously,” he said in an interview with Radio Times. 

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Moreover, even the director, Mark L. Lester, added to the fire. He seemed irked by the fact that the body count for the movie was low in comparison to Rambo II. Thus, he tweaked the ending scene for a greater number of bad guys getting killed to match Rambo’s action scenes. However, this resulted in a big problem that led to permanent changes and budget problems. 

Steven De Souza holds Sylvester Stallone responsible

As per the source, since more deaths were added, the budget shot up thus, causing a major issue for the project. As a result, De Souza’s original ending was altered to a different one. The writer had a statement on the matter. He said, “I blame Sylvester Stallone for screwing up the ending.” 

He further explained that the director had got a sneak peek into the movie and deduced that since Stallone killed a larger group of bad guys, Arnie had to outperform him. Thus, by putting the movie over budget, he achieved the same. 

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Quite ironically, the two action legends now are the best of buddies, even having worked in Expendables. This collaboration has a whole other story behind it, which is worth finding out.