Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the quintessential action heroes of the 80s and 90s and led some of the major action films that defined the era. After impressing everyone with his turn as Conan the Barbarian in the 1982 film, he found tremendous success with films like The Terminator, Commando, The Running Man, and Predator.
The latter is one of Schwarzenegger’s most acclaimed films and has become a cult classic. During the 80s, he was also known for his infamous feud with another action hero Sylvester Stallone. Many might be surprised to know that the idea of the Predator film grew out of a joke that circulated in Hollywood regarding Stallone’s Rocky films.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Predator Was Born Out of Jokes About the Rocky Films
In the 80s, Arnold Schwarzenegger was slowly becoming one of the most bankable movie stars in the industry with back-to-back hits like Conan The Barbarian, The Terminator, and Commando. 1987’s Predator continued his winning streak as an action hero, as he and his team battle the highly skilled alien Predator.
Many will be surprised to know that the idea of the film became the answer to an inside joke in Hollywood regarding Sylvester Stallone‘s Rocky films. After Rocky IV‘s huge success, a joke circulated in Hollywood about how Rocky should now have to face an alien. As put by Indiewire, the director of Predator John McTiernan saw the pitch of the film as “Rocky meets Alien”.
Schwarzenegger was also having an extremely competitive rivalry with Stallone at the time. The writers of the film Jim and John Thomas had already written a script called The Hunter where a combat soldier hunts down a deadly alien. The script evolved and along with the inside joke in the industry, it somehow meshed together and the film became an exhilarating flick where a soldier manages to kill a technologically advanced alien.
The film became one of Schwarzenegger’s biggest hits and further cemented his legacy as a great action hero. The success of the film spawned many sequels which did not receive the same love as the first film.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone’s Rivalry Was Extremely Intense
It is a well-known fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone did not see eye to eye during the 80s and 90s and were fiercely competitive with their movies. Schwarzenegger revealed on The Graham Norton Show that the extent of their rivalry was on a whole other level.
Schwarzenegger claimed that their competition ranged from who had the best body, the number of people they killed in their films, and holding the best guns. They were ready to do anything in order to surpass what the others had done previously. He said (via Deadline),
“We were movie rivals, but we took the competitiveness to the extreme – we each had to have the best body, we had to kill more people in our films, and we had to have the biggest guns. It got out of control, and we tried to derail each other.”
The two stars ended their feud in the early 2000s and have even starred in movies together. Hit films like The Expendables and Escape Plan had the two of them sharing screen space together.
