Stallone Now Highest Paid Actor In Hollywood

Like Rocky, the archetypal underdog who propelled him to superstardom, Sylvester Stallone was down but not out. Efforts to break out of his muscleman image and into comedy in 1991 with “Oscar” and 1992 with “Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot” had been met with smirks and derision. In the ‘90s, the man who had turned Rambo, the Human Fighting Machine, into an international icon was denigrated as a relic of our jingoistic past.

“After each of my movies was released, I’d read my obituary in the Los Angeles Times,” Stallone recalls, referring not only to his ill-fated comic outings but to lackluster offerings such as “Lock Up,” “Over the Top” and “Tango & Cash.” “They’d say my audience had abandoned me, that my time had come and gone. My image and Rambo’s were fused. For seven years, beginning in 1985, I was dragging an anchor, driving with the brakes on.”

Not anymore. “Cliffhanger,” a return to Stallone’s action-adventure roots, took in more than a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide in 1993, followed by “Demolition Man” and “The Specialist,” which grossed $160 million and $170 million, respectively.

Last December, Savoy Pictures Entertainment made the actor an unprecedented offer: $20 million as an advance against 20 percent of the gross for a yet-to-be-named actionadventure movie in 1996. Nearly two decades after “Rocky,” the 48-yearold Italian Stallion is not only standing but is the highest-paid performer in Hollywood.

“It’s the safest deal I’ve made,” maintains Savoy Chairman Victor Kaufman. “Stallone is one of the two or three biggest superstars in the rapidly growing international marketplace where action-adventure sells. The price we’re paying him is relatively cheap compared to others with less box-office draw.”

Joel Silver, producer of “Demolition Man” and Stallone’s current project, “Assassins,” says that the actor has nearly $70 million in movie commitments over the next two years - a sum that will be paid to him whether the films are made or not.

“As long as Stallone gives the public what it wants, he’s the closest thing in this business to a ‘guarantee,”’ Silver says. “He can’t go off and do the story of Louis Pasteur. But if there’s a gun in his hand and someone is chasing him, he’ll return $100 million to the studio.”

That’s what Cinergi Pictures Entertainment and Walt Disney Studios are banking on. On June 30, Stallone will surface as the title character in their $70 million “Judge Dredd,” a futuristic tale based on the British comic book character - the personification of justice in a corrupt, chaotic civilization set in 2139. One of the special effects scenes in the film, which co-stars Armand Assante, cost seven times the $900,000 budget of “Rocky,” the actor points out as a measure of the distance he - and Hollywood - have come.

Now that the political climate has changed, Stallone says, the time may be ripe for Rambo to return - on pay-per-view domestically to reach its core audience before a theatrical release abroad. And taking a cue from “Beauty and the Beast,” he’s asked lyricist Alan Menken and pal Elton John to adapt “Rocky” for the musical stage. (In case you were wondering, he doesn’t plan to star.)

There’s breaking news on the personal front, as well. According to an engagement announcement released last month, Stallone intends to marry 25-year-old Angie Everhart, a Sports Illustrated bathing suit model and fledgling actress (“Jade”) whom he started dating in March.

“Change only comes by doing things you’re afraid of,” says the twice-married Stallone, a man who overcame a deep-seated fear of heights to dangle 13,000 feet up in the Dolomites during the “Cliffhanger” shoot and braved a 20-below windchill factor in a tank top for “Rambo.” “There’s been a perennial vacancy in my personal life. I never felt fulfilled. On the surface, I seemed to be leading a festive existence, but I wasn’t enjoying the movies I made or the life I led. Success wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“We act because we’re not happy being who we are. And, unless we fall out of love with the character halfway through, we crash when a movie wraps. Offer an actor $50 million to give up acting and most would refuse. Every day would be torture, biding time until we die.”