Category: Unmade Films

Imagine Sly as Superman

Craig / / 2010, Unmade Films

On April 21, 2010, Ilya Salkind was interviewed by Tom MacLean for Newsarama,com about the Superman movies.  One of the areas discussed involved the casting of the man of steel. Here’s a taste of who Salkind said was considered:

More well-known actors considered for the part included Sylvester Stallone, who Salkind says was “a little bit difficult to imagine” in the role, as well as James Caan, Burt Reynolds and Robert Redford.

Others given consideration for the role included Salkind’s ex-wife’s dentist, Bruce Jenner, Jon Voight and even Neil Diamond!

It’s an interesting interview and you can read it in its entirety here.

Sly a Zombie?

Craig / / 2010, Unmade Films

Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick the writers behind the hit Zombieland recently said in an interview at Den of Geek that Sly was one of the actors approached about a cameo as zombie.  Patrick Swayze was the first actor that Reese and Wernick had in mind, but when it became known that Swayze was very ill, they went to plan two…

So, we officially put pen to paper and brainstormed and wrote about 10 to 15 drafts with different celebrity cameos in mind: Sylvester Stallone, Joe Pesci, Jean Claude Van Damme, Matthew McConaughey, Mark Hamill… and for one reason or another they all said no. One being schedule, another bring this idea of actors playing themselves in a movie that was hard to get over the hump on.

Perhaps Sly will make a cameo in Zombieland II which is now in the planning stages.  To read the full interview, click here.

Sly’s Dream Project… A Reality!

Craig / / 2005, Celebs, Unmade Films

On May 23, 2005, Variety.com reported that Sly Stallone will direct his long-discussed dream project: a movie about the life and death of Edgar Allen Poe. Sly has been talking about making this film for years and now it looks as if it will happen.

Stallone‘s choice [and it’s a great one] to play Poe is Robert Downey Jr.

Stallone will direct from his own screenplay.

Nu Image/Millennium Films will finance, produce and distribute the film which may start shooting this fall.

So… where does that leave Rocky VI and Rambo IV? Only time will tell. – Craig

Two Stallone Film Rumors

Craig / / 2004, Celebs, Unmade Films

Two really cool film project rumors are floating around today and both involve Sly.

The first film rumor about Sly is that James Cameron has a part for him in Cameron‘s next movie which is starting to gear up. Sly‘s part may just be a cameo but according to what’s being said Brian Cox and Arnold Schwarzenegger will also have roles and the film will be shot in 3D. For full details click HERE or HERE.

The second is a stop motion project [think Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas] called AUTOMATONS. The story involves two killer robots designed by the US during WWII to kill Hitler. When it appears that Hitler has taken his own life the robots are left on the ocean floor… only the robots didn’t “die” and have for the last sixty years been looking for Hitler on the bottom of the ocean.

Wait! It gets crazier because Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini have been in a Top Secret Cryo-Chamber… and when they are thawed out decide that they were really wrong with “that whole rule the world thing, so Adolphdecides to put on the greatest play version of YOU’RE A GOOD MAN CHARLIE BROWN…”

So how does Sly fit into all of this you ask? It seems that he will voice Mussolini. Jack Black and John C Reilly will voice the killer bots, John Cleese provides Hitler‘s voice and there are voice roles for Billy Bob Thorton, William H. Macy and Holly Hunter as well. According to Harry at AICN [and who has seen some of the film work], most of the voice work is done!

This is one film too crazy NOT to be true. For full details click HERE.

– Craig

Sly in “Spawn” Sequel?

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Unmade Films

On Wednesday, November 26, 2003 Ain’t It Cool News posted an item in which Michael Jai White, the star of the original “Spawn” movie said that the sequel is on track and that although “…Martin Sheen [the bad guy in the original] isn’t in it this time, the villain might be a guy called Brimstone…” and the last he heard, “Sly Stallone was the man for the job.” Click [HERE] for the full report.

I can think of a lot of other roles I’d rather see Sly take on… and it’s just speculation for now.
Thanks to Jamie Eade for the tip. – Craig Zablo

Sly in “Westworld”

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Unmade Films

This week rumors were flying that Sly might replace Arnold Schwarzenegger in the remake of the classic “Westworld” by Michael Crichton.  AICN says…

“According to a studio insider, the project may now have fallen on fellow action star Sylvester Stallone‘s lap.”

Harry goes on to add…

“Putting Stallone in as anything other than the Gunfighter would be a mistake in my opinion.”

For the full story, please click [HERE].

I loved the original “Westworld” and think that a remake is an excellent idea. I would have loved to have seen Sly as one of the two guys who go there for a vacation and find themselves fighting for their lives [one only briefly] against out of control robots. Now that Arnold is apparently out, Sly could step in an fill the role of the Gunfighter… or he could still play the Josh Brolin part. Either way, if this rumor pans out, Sly will have a good role.

– Craig Zablo

A Rocky Road

Craig / / 2003, Avenging Angelo, Celebs, Champs, D-Tox, Driven, Eye See You, Family, Get Carter, Rocky, Rocky VI, Shade, Unmade Films

A Rocky Road
Sylvester Stallone is in training for another comeback
BY MARK CARO for the Chicago Tribune
Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2003

AUSTIN, Texas — Sylvester Stallone is climbing back into the ring, figuratively in “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” and literally in a sixth “Rocky” movie.

Yes, he has already written “Rocky VI,” which he’s calling “Puncher’s Chance,” the title referring to the idea that once in the ring, any fighter has a chance to land a knockout punch. Stallone — with “Spy Kids 3-D” the only one of his last four movies to actually make it to theaters — is looking for that shot as well.

“Rocky made his moment when he’s 29 years old,” a fit-looking Stallone, who turned 57 on July 6, said while in Austin for the “Spy Kids” premiere. “Now time has moved on, but how do you participate when your options are pretty limited? It’s not as though he’s a painter or a world traveler. He is a fixture in the neighborhood. The neighborhood is decaying. Do you decay with it? And when you try to fight back, (you’re told), ‘It’s ludicrous. Come on! Move on! Don’t be so vain.’

“It’s not about vanity,” he continued, his familiar gravelly voice turning soft. “It’s about, ‘I know I don’t feel as though I’ve hit the bottom. I haven’t dredged the bottom of my well yet, I don’t think.’ There’s a point when you sit back on your life, and you’re on your final days going, ‘You know? I did it all.’ And I don’t know if I’ve done it all. The character.”

These last two words were said as a reminder that he was talking about Rocky, not himself.

But he knows he can’t escape the parallels. Like his most famous character, Stallone has gone from top-of-the-world star to afterthought — a $20 million-per-movie action hero whose most recent efforts have bombed (“Get Carter,” “Driven,” the latter of which he wrote) or, worse yet, haven’t even received a U.S. theatrical release (“D-Tox,” also known as “Eye See You,” “Avenging Angelo,” “Shade”).

“Spy Kids 3-D,” which opened Friday, at least will get him in front of large audiences again. He plays the comical villain, the Toymaker, who has designed a video game that ultimately imprisons the minds of its players. The character’s goofiness manifests itself in multiple personalities that argue with one another: a bald, professor type, a blustery European military commander (Stallone refers to him as “Gooselini”) and a stringy-haired hippie. For good measure, Stallone also plays a TV reporter.

Like most of the movie, his scenes were shot in front of green screens so that computerized scenery and special effects could be added later. Aside from a climactic confrontation with Ricardo Montalban, who plays the Spy Kids‘ wheelchair-bound grandpa, Stallone is mostly acting with himself.

How did he feel about acting without other actors? “I’ve been doing that for the last 10 years,” he quipped, laughing.

Stallone‘s sense of humor may not be one of his better-known traits, but it’s the key reason “Spy Kids 3-D” director Robert Rodriguez said he cast him.

Stallone compared working with a green screen to “being held face down in a bowl of guacamole for three weeks” (though his part took just five days to shoot).

“Yeah, it’s strange. It’s like working without a net.”

Yet “Spy Kids 3-D” feels like a safe move compared with what Stallone has planned. First up is a ripped-from-the-headlines crime drama called “Thugz Life” (formerly “Rampart Scandal”) that Stallone has written and is preparing to direct in his first stint behind the camera since 1985’s “Rocky IV.” He’ll also star as real-life Los Angeles police detective Russell Poole, whose career crashed as he tried to get to the bottom of the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murders.

Then there’s “Puncher’s Chance,” which continues Stallone‘s exploration of counted-out guys who keep forging ahead.

He admits he goofed in giving Rocky brain damage in “Rocky V,” which ended with Rocky brawling with his ungrateful protege on the street rather than in the ring.

“It was a big mistake on my part because nobody wants to see the dark, depressing underbelly of a character they’ve had joy with,” Stallone said.

So Rocky will return to the ring for movie No. 6.

– Craig Zablo

Hey, Those Guys Look Like Rocky!

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Cop Land, D-Tox, Family, Unmade Films

Hey, Those Guys Look Like Rocky
In Spy Kids, Sylvester Stallone plays an unconventional four-part role to appease his inner child
By RICHARD CORLISST

uesday, Jul. 22, 2003 [From the Time OnLine edition]

He is the Toymaker, the brainy bad guy bent on ruling the cyberworld. He holds conferences with three advisers — a steely general, a bald scientist and a blissed-out hippie — all played by the one actor. Sylvester Stallone is simply the guest villain of Robert Rodriguez’s 3-D video game, but when the veteran star is onscreen, this Spy Kids plays like Sly Kids.”

Actors who partake in films like this or in animated films, like I did in Antz, often say, ‘I did it for my children,'” notes Stallone, who’s 57 but looks a fit and muscular 15 years younger. “Nah. You mean you did it for your inner child. Here I get to scream and act like a total fool and get paid for it. In a part like this, you really have to let loose and not worry that you hear the ‘acting police’ sirens looming in the background.”

Stallone had mentioned to Rodriguez that he had no movies in which he appears to show his older daughters, Sophia Rose, 6, and Sistine Rose, 5. As the director recalls, “I told him he’d get to be a hissable but redeemable bad guy and to play opposite one of the greatest actors: himself. We sent the kids an early videotape so they could see how cool their dad is.”

Or some might say “was,” for Stallone is at least a decade past his uber-hunk prime. Of his star vehicles after 1994, the top U.S. grosser (a modest $45 million) was the arty Cop Land. His last action film, D-Tox, hardly played in theaters at all.

As for Rocky and Rambo: those franchises are sooo last century. Stallone knows he’s lucky to have played two iconic heroes, but he calls it “the esoteric kiss of death, because you’re never going to be taken seriously. It’s like if John Wayne wanted to dance The Nutcracker. People would say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t care how good you look in a tutu or how you are en pointe, I’m not buying it.'”

At 57, any man hears the whispers of career mortality. “You almost feel obligated to get depressed,” he says. “What nags at you is becoming warehoused — having your soul and your ambition put in cold storage.” Your ego too: it’s tough to fade gracefully to character-actor status after 25 years of stardom.

So he’ll be starring in and directing Rampart Scandal, about alleged cop corruption in the Tupac Shakur murder case. He’s also defying age and logic by planning a Rocky VI.

Clearly, the pug boxer is never far from Stallone. His home is festooned with Rocky arcana, including paintings by the actor. There’s also a photo, taken the day Baghdad fell, of a young Iraqi hoisting a U.S. flag with Rocky emblazoned on it. The image pleases and tickles the star: “You know the movie wasn’t playing in Iraq. Why would someone smuggle into the country a character that represents the American Dream? Did he have it under his bed thinking, I can’t wait to be liberated! It’s the first thing I’m pulling out!?”

In Hollywood, Stallone the star may be history. But in the rest of the world, he still helps make it.

— Reported by Desa Philadelphia/Los Angeles

From the Jul. 28, 2003 issue of TIME magazine  – Craig Zablo

Rocky’s Sixth Round

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Family, Jennifer Flavin-Stallone, Rocky, Spy Kids 3D, Unmade Films

“Rocky’s Sixth Round”
by Liz Smith for New York Newsday.com
July 28, 2003′

What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It’s for the superfluous we sweat,” said Roman playwright Seneca.

SYLVESTER STALLONE, sitting in dark pants and a gray polo shirt in the lobby lounge of the Four Seasons hotel, looks as if he never breaks a sweat. But judging from his beautifully tanned biceps and deltoids and his flat abs – I’m sure he does. He still works out and takes care of himself. I have known this guy since he hit the heights with “Rocky,” his creation, his inspiration, his super-hit. Stallone looks better today at 57 than he did back in the beginning of what many thought was just an impossible dream.

Sly is in town promoting his role as a villain in “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.” I asked how much of a villain? He laughed, “I’m the one you want to live next door. I’m the kind who keeps learning his lesson, like Wile E. Coyote. I’m an evil genius who creates a kind of cyberspace game that steals the minds of children. We’re like we’re in a computer game. And the kids are just great; real pros! I loved working with them.”

I ASKED my longtime friend Sly to talk a bit about what it’s like to have created the iconic “Rocky,” and how he has adjusted to the ups and downs of fame. He said, “Well, I have a great family life, a wonderful wife [Jennifer Flavin] who gets smarter every day, and my three daughters, 2, 5 and 6. You know, the Quran says a man with three little girls goes directly to heaven when he dies, as he will already have endured in life enough worry and paranoia. But it has dawned on me that your life works from your roots. My family has saved my sanity.

“It took me a while to realize that ‘Rocky’ wasn’t just a performance. It had great meaning; the character became indelible. I don’t want to sound pretentious, but I did once rebel against the ‘Rocky’ idea. Now I know it’s normal to want to run the full spectrum, the rainbow of all your colors. ‘Rocky’ is a philosophy, so let’s make the sixth one, which I’ve already written. ‘Rocky’ still needs to be in the game, like my hero, George Foreman, who went from real-life ‘villain’ to fabled hero in only 50 years or so. He’ll be in the next ‘Rocky’ movie!

“I call this script ‘Puncher’s Chance,’ because it’s what every fighter has. A fighter may lose his abilities, but even old fighters retain their punch. It’s the last thing they lose. And if they use it right, they can get lucky. Foreman, you know, is going to fight again professionally. And look at a great athlete like Lance Armstrong. These guys just keep moving forward.”

MEANWHILE, Stallone is moving forward with another story he wrote, “Thug’z Life,” about the real-life deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., and the corruption in the L.A. Police Department. Sly will direct, produce and appear as Det. Russell Poole, who believed there was something rotten going on and was removed from the force as a result. “We are just waiting for the Errors & Omissions insurance; it’s a normal thing, to keep us from being sued,” Sly said. “I think this can be a great film. It will offer a conspiracy theory, present the evidence and let the audience draw its own conclusions.”

“YOU KNOW, sometimes, I think there’s not a lot I can do in this industry,” Sly continued. “I have begun fantasizing about getting into the anti-aging game with nutritionals. I have been talking to experts, and I’d like to do something like what Paul Newman did with his food line. A situation where you can do something useful for society and give something back. So I have been examining that.

“Stallone is a forceful guy, who also has high hopes that, eventually, he will make his movie on the life of Edgar Allan Poe. It is written, it is ready, and Sly continues to seek the actor to play it and the financing to make it. “It will win an Oscar for somebody!” he says with certainty.

At the end of our talk, I asked Sly how his controversial mom, Jackie, is doing? He smiled. “Everybody wants to keep on keeping on, to be famous, to do their thing. She does hers!” Well, she did one thing very well; she produced the phenomenon that is Sylvester Stallone. Sly knows the reality and says “Youth must be served … but the rest of us go on as well. We have our choices, our ambitions, and we have that last important thing – the ‘Puncher’s Chance!'”

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

– Craig Zablo

“Thugz Lives”

Craig / / 2003, Unmade Films

From Ananova.com 14:29 Thursday 17th July 2003

Stallone working on film about Biggie and Tupac

Sylvester Stallone is working on a film about the deaths of rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur.

The film will go into the alleged LA Police Department corruption scandal that lurks beneath the story.

Stallone says he’ll direct and star in the film, which he’s provisionally calling Thugz Lives, reports Radio 1.

It will centre on the theory that Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur were killed as part of a gang-police-rap power triangle.

He says most of the cast will be from the hip-hop community, and he realises the soundtrack’s going to be crucial to the film.

Stallone says: “The hip-hop soundtrack would push the story along also.”

“It’s gonna conjure up memories, because we have to use Tupac, Biggie, you have to use music from that era, and then kind of segue into new stuff, but it’s got to have the feel of stuff from ’97, so it’s more old skool.”

Story filed: 14:29 Thursday 17th July 2003

I think that “Thugz LIves” might be an even better title than “Rampart Scandal.”

– Craig Zablo