Recently Mental_Floss posted 14 Movie Characters Who Were Supposed to Die But Didn’t by Rudie Obias.
Guess who had two characters in the top 14? That’s right, Sly and here’s what was said:
4. Rambo // First Blood
In the novel First Blood, Rambo commits suicide at the end of a long battle with Sheriff Teasle. Rambo’s death scene was filmed, but Sylvester Stallone saw the potential for a new franchise, so Rambo lived to fight another day in the final version.
5. Rocky Balboa // Rocky V
Rocky V was supposed to be the last movie in the franchise, and Stallone ended its screenplay accordingly, with Rocky Balboa dying at the hands of rival Tommy Gunn during a street fight. But during production, director John Avildsen got a call from executives telling him, “‘Oh by the way, Rocky’s not going to die,'” he recalled in 2014. “‘Batman doesn’t die, Superman, James Bond, these people don’t die.” Stallone wrote a new ending featuring Rocky and his son Robert Balboa jogging to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and looking over the city’s skyline.