Dolph Lundgren, Carl Weathers, and of course, Sylvester Stallone are the three pillars of the Rocky franchise. The films have grossed a total of $1.7 billion worldwide combined, and this is including the Creed films. One would think that the newer films would have made more than the old ones, but that’s not the case. 1985’s Rocky IV is still the highest-grossing film of the franchise with $300 million.
That film also gave everyone the memorable and endlessly meme-able dialogue- “If he dies, he dies.” This line was said by Dolph Lundgren’s Ivan Drago after he beat and killed Carl Weathers’ Apollo Creed. The fight between them was epic on-screen, but turns out things weren’t quite all right off-screen.
Carl Weathers Wasn’t Pleased With Dolph Lundgren’s Aggression On Rocky IV?
The iconic match between Dolph Lundgren’s Ivan Drago and Carl Weathers’ Apollo Creed in Rocky IV gave rise to rumors that the two stars couldn’t tolerate each other behind the scenes. Apparently, Weathers was so disturbed by his co-star’s unnecessary aggression that he even walked off-set. That led to the film shoot stopping for four days.
Lundgren in an interview with Yahoo seemed to hint that there was some truth to these rumors. He said:
“I like Carl. But I’d worked out with Sly for five months before the picture. So I knew him pretty well. And I was a fighter, a karate champion from Europe and I think when Carl showed up, he was like, ‘I’m gonna have to fight this guy? He seems like he’s the real thing.’ I didn’t dislike anybody on that set but I think he got a little scared of me. Then I had to kill him, of course.”
But it looks like Weathers, who recently starred as the High Magistrate Greef Karga in the Disney+ Star Wars show, The Mandalorian, has rubbished such rumors.
Carl Weathers Rubbished Reports Of Falling Out With Dolph Lundgren
In an interview with British GQ, Carl Weathers was asked if the rumors of a cold feud between him and his Rocky IV co-star Dolph Lundgren were true. The Star Wars actor said that it was all made up for publicity. He explained:
“I love those stories when they’re made up, you know. It’s kind of great fodder for publicity. You get the audience interested and all that. But Dolph is just a sweet guy. And I like to think I am as well. Despite what it has looked like on screen. No, we worked really well together and I’ve seen Dolph so many times since then. He’s just as generous today as he was then.”
It has been about 38 years since the release of Rocky IV. Whatever issues were there (if they ever were) are all water under the bridge now. Both of them have moved on with their careers since then. Also, both still meet up sometimes to catch up with each other.
Rocky 4 is available on Amazon Prime Video
Source: British GQ and Yahoo
