Author: Craig

Frank Arrives

Craig / / 2011, Frank Stallone

LOS ANGELES, CA – AUGUST 30: Frank Stallone arrives at the 10th Anniversary LA Police Protective League’s Eagle & Badge Foundation Gala on August 30, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images)

 

Kelsey Shannon: Sly as Captain America

Craig / / 2011, Craig's Sly Art

The amazing Kelsey Shannon makes his return to the SZ Gallery.  Kelsey has worked in comics, animation, and film.  He can pencil, ink and color.  Kelsey plays a mean game of hacki-sack and he’s one of the nicest and most talented people that you could ever meet.  Kelsey surprised me with his take on Sly as Captain America.  How cool.

I got my first piece from Kelsey, back in 2002.  He also surprised me with it!  Then I actually got to meet Kelsey at Heroes Con in 2004.   At that show he did me, this cool take on Sly as Jack Carter.   It’s still one of my favorites riffs on Sly as Carter.  I think we’re going to have to get Kelsey back to MegaCon or Heroes and bribe him for more sketches.  If I bring big blocks of cheese it might work.

You can see more of Kelsey’s amazing art here.

 

Donnie Yen: Expendable in China?

Craig / / 2011, Celebs, Expendables 2

The big story this week is that it looks like Donnie Yen is coming on board for Expendables 2 and some filming will take place in China.

And many other sites…

 

Sly the Most Famous Fan

Craig / / 2011

The Bleacher Report posted a piece by Thomas Cooper on August 22, 2011, about The Most Famous Fan of Each English Premiere League Club.  Sly was selected as the famous fan for Everton.  Here’s what was said about Sly…

  • Okay labelling Sylvester Stallone an Everton fan might be pushing it a bit, but arguably nobody as famous as the Hollywood star as displayed the Toffee’s colours as he did on a cold January afternoon in 2007.

    A friend of Planet Hollywood co-founder and Everton director Robert Earl, Stallone paraded around the pitch at Goodison Park wearing an Everton coat and holding aloft a club scarf before the team’s 1-1 draw with Reading.

    If you might of thought an American actor might have drew the ire of sharp-tongued Scouse football fans, well Stallone actually got quite a good reception. He is Rocky after all.

 

Robbi Rodriguez & Machine Gun Joe

Craig / / 2011, Craig's Sly Art, Death Race 2000

Robbi Rodroguez did a Rocky sketch for me at last year’s Heroes Convention. When I saw that Robbi was going to be at Heroes again this year and was taking commissions early, I asked for an iconic black and white piece of Sly as Jack Carter. Robbi knew exactly what I was looking for and came through like a champ with this piece. I was totally blown away.

So I requested another Stallone piece, this time totally of Robbi’s choosing.  He decided to go with Sly as Machine Gun Joe Viterbo from Death Race 2000.  It was a unique choice that I quickly got behind.  Robbi not only drew Machine Gun Joe standing in his race car with a smoking machine gun, but threw in Joe’s co-pilot as well.  I can’t say enough great things about Robbi’s commissions except that I want another!

You can see more of Robbi’s art here and here… and definitely again here at the SZ in the future.

 

Renny Harlin Didn’t Want Sly for Cliffhanger

Craig / / 2011, Cliffhanger

On August 21, 2011, Worst Previews posted an interesting article titled “Renny Harlin Never Wanted Sylvester Stallone for ‘Cliffhanger'”.  Here are some tidbits…

  • Renny Harlin: “[The studio] said to me, we want Sylvester Stallone to star in this movie. And I said, ‘no way.’ I don’t know who I was picturing for it, Kevin Costner or somebody, but they wanted him because they did ‘Rambo’ with him. This was at a point where he had just made ‘Oscar’ and ‘Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot,’ both disastrous comedies and his career was in the toilet. And I said, ‘no way, I don’t want him.’
  • Renny Harlin: “So I have a private lunch with him, and he tells me how badly he wants to play this part. And he says, ‘I know I screwed up making those comedies, and I know people find me laughable now. But I really want to prove something, I want to do something real, I want to make this film.’ And I said, ‘I can’t name one director who has come out of a movie with you looking good. You always take over, and no one remembers who the director was. And that’s not what I’m looking for, I want this to be my movie, I want to hire someone who does a great job and works with me.’ And he says, ‘That’s exactly what I want. I promise if I do this movie, I will do exactly what you want me to do.”
  • Renny Harlin: “We talked some more and I really took a liking to him. He was really smart, very charming. At the end of the lunch, I said, ‘Ok. If we have an understanding, I’m gonna tell you the first thing I’m gonna do. I’m gonna change the opening scene in the movie. Because in the opening scene, he’s a rescue worker, he’s very heroic. But if you’re playing the part, I want you to fail, and I want you to kill the girl.’ And he was like, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘I am gonna change the scene so that you fail, and you kill this girl in the opening scene.’ He took a deep breath and said, ‘Alright, you’re the director, if that’s what you want, let’s do it.’ I changed the whole opening scene so that he would fail.”

Congrats to Worst Previews for a well done piece!

 

 

“Rambo: Last Stand”

Craig / / 2011, Rambo
 The big story this week is a potential new Rambo movie that could be in the works.  Although I felt that the last Rambo effectively wrapped up the series, I do like the idea of Rambo: Last Stand done “with the tone of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.”

 

It’s a tough call whether to do another since the last Rambo was so well respected by critics and fans of the genre.  Sly has been on a roll though with “Rocky Balboa”, “Rambo”, and “The Expendables”.  “Bullet to the Head” looks to be another winner and then we have the highly anticipated “Expendables 2”.  When Sly sticks with what he does best, he seldom stumbles, so it will be interesting to see what Sly decides with “Rambo: Last Stand”.  Either way, my guess is it will be the right choice.

And many other sites…