Craig Zablo’s StalloneZone

Archive for February, 2009

My buddy, John Beatty turned me on to Derek Fridolf’s artwork.  I was visting John and he handed me Derek’s latest sketchbook.  I was instantly into the art.  I said to John that I bet that Derek could do a pretty cool Stallone.  Beatty laughed and handed me the sketch above.  I was floored.

Derek offers a free headsketch with every sketchbook purchased.  John wanted the sketchbook, but doesn’t collect art.  So he asked Derek to do a Stallone piece that he would give to me.   Derek agreed and created his very cool take on Rambo.  You can check out more of Derek’s work here.  And of course John Beatty can be found here and here.

Thanks to Derek and John.

On Tuesday, February 17, 2009, Harry at AICN posted an exclusive report that came to him from an extremely reliable source saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be making a cameo in “The Expendables.”

Harry said that Arnold would “shooting for one day” playing himself “and it seems that the Gov and Sly’s character Barney Ross have some history back when the Gov was shooting Conan the Barbarian!”  Harry concluded the post with: “So there you have it.  Sly and Arnie are both in this film.  I’d take this to the bank, I have a really good (ahem) source (ahem) on this!

Websites all over the world lit up with news that Arnold would finally appear on film alongside Sly.

Then, less than 24 hours later, Harry was back saying:

“Hey folks, Harry here… It seems there’s a possibility that my source was a bit too exuberant about the certainty of Arnold Schwarzenegger signing aboard.  The whole thing is very dependent upon what happens with Arnold’s primary gig as the Governor of California… My source also tells me if this miracle does come to pass you’ll find Arnie not as the Governor, but as something a bit more gritty, scarred and brutalized.

So, where does that leave us?  We’ve gone from a sure thing ["take it to the bank"] to what sounds as highly unlikely ["if this miracle does come to pass"].  Still, fans have been waiting for years for the pairing and “The Expendables” seems like the perfect project to make it happen.  I especially like the sound of the change from Arnie playing himself to something more “gritty, scarred and brutalized.”

Time will tell, but I do have my fingers crossed.

SZoner, Mike “Adnuk” Kunda is regular contributor to the StalloneZone. This time he’s back with Stallone artwork that he’s created over the years.  Thanks to Mike for sharing!

On February 17, 2009, the Examiner.com posted a detailed profile of Sly by Andy Williamson.  You can read it here.

The February 18, 2009, New York Post in their Page Six column features a post about a fan’s chance meeting with Sly that took place when the guy walked out into the street without paying attention to the coming traffic.  Sly skidded to a stop short of hitting him.  The piece is called “Sly’s a Beverly Hills Prince” and you can read it here.

Starting on March 7th, once a week, Alec Baldwin will join TCM’s Robert Osborne to introduce classic movies that every film buff should see.  The series is called “The Essentials.” On March 14th, the movie classic that will be shown is “Rocky” and here are some “fun facts” that the web site lists:

MARCH 14  Rocky (1976)
Inspired by the 1975 championship fight between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Weber, Sylvester Stallone wrote the Rocky screenplay.  It was the second highest-grossing film of 1977, behind Star Wars.  Robert Redford, James Caan and Burt Reynolds were considered for the role of “Rocky,” but Stallone refused to sell the rights to the film unless he was the lead.  Bette Midler was offered the role of “Adrian” but turned it down.

You can read the entire piece which includes a mini-interview with Alec Baldwin and the entire year’s listing of the classic movies that they’ll introduce simply by clicking here.

On February 17th, The Latino Review was the first to announce that Danny Trejo has joined Sly’s cast for “The Expendables.” How cool is that?  Trejo always makes a film better — he’ a fan favorite and a welcome addition.

Francesco Francavilla is an extremely talented artist.  His art blog is a regular stop on my internet travels.  I love Francesco’s moody black and white work and was excited to get a copy of his Chiaroscuro sketchbook.  I was even more excited to learn that Francesco draws a free “quick sketch” in every copy ordered through his site.   As you can see from the scan above, he decided to give me his take on Freddy from “Cop Land.”

Chiaroscuro is 70 pages full of Francesco’s black and white work.  It features everything from quick sketches to more detailed work of characters like Hellboy, Batman, Kong, Marv, and so many others.  It arrives securely packaged [which is a major plus knowing my mail carrier] and the last page contains the quick sketch.   Francesco has another sketchbook available.  Schermoscuro is a classic horror movie guide in artbook form.  Francesco is offering the same deal on it and I plan to take him up on it soon.

On Feburary 9, 2009, X17OnLine posted several candids of Sly.  You can check them out by clicking here.

On February 9, 2009, Mercury News.com posted “Let Freedom Ring: See Philadelphia on a Budget.” They ran the photo above with tips on what to see in the city without spending a fortune.  Of course, this included places made famous by Sly/Rocky.  You can read the whole piece here.