Stallone’s 1985–86 global stardom; Dolph Lundgren; Warner Wolf; Barry Tompkins; Vince DiCola; movie sit-ups; sports-movie wet-blanket wives; Tony Burton; foreboding synthesizers; 1980s movie montages
Splintered patriotism, recycled footage, TV-delivered bad news, robot sexual jokes, reduced death impact, poor officiating/training, accents, continuity, and the Stallone–Nielsen relationship
Asked whether Cocktail is the greatest bad movie ever, this participant offers a top five: No. 5 the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling movie, rewatched as much as any 1980s movie as a kid because it was always on WPIX. — Sean Fennessey
Amid agreeing interjections, the Stallone arm-wrestling movie is joked about as a stealth divorce movie. — Sean Fennessey
A reply argues Showgirls and Anaconda may be ineligible because their makers knew or winked at the badness, with Snakes on a Plane as the ultimate intentionally bad movie. — Bill Simmons
The hosts say Cocktail went through 40 versions of the script, is based on a book, tried to say something about 80s wealth, turned into dudes flipping bottles, and made a lot of money. — Bill Simmons
The script floated around for a long time with little record of who nearly played whom; Sylvester Stallone was attached at one point, twenty-five years too late, and on the Skyscraper set The Rock told Pablo Schreiber he was supposed to do the movie ten years earlier, when he would have been a lead rather than the 50 Cent part, since villain Rock still does not exist.
The film had a long, circuitous development of ten or fifteen years, at one point at Relativity, with various names attached; it benefits from not being the Heat setup of two famous stars, since Schreiber and Butler let you lose yourself in the movie.
Mickey Rourke signed a $400,000 holding deal and left; Sylvester Stallone rewrote it as a straight action film with Axel Cobretti and quit two weeks before filming; Martin Scorsese was offered the director's chair and dismissed the script; Eddie Murphy was hired two weeks before shooting
Mickey Rourke signed a $400,000 holding contract and then left the project; a New York Times quote has Don Simpson tearing a picture of Rourke out of a magazine, holding it up and saying 'isn't he great', which the hosts attribute to all the cocaine, although one says you did not need cocaine to want Rourke in 1984.
This is the movie missing from Rourke's run before he started messing up his face: Heaven's Gate, Body Heat, Diner, Rumblefish, Pope of Greenwich Village, then the gap where Beverly Hills Cop could sit, followed by Eureka, Year of the Dragon and Nine and a Half Weeks; the holding deal's schedules did not work out.
Stallone was more extreme: he made it a straight action film with the lead renamed Axel Cobretti, Michael Tandino as his brother and Jenny as his love interest, an opening meant to be like Saving Private Ryan on the beaches of Normandy, ideas deemed too expensive, and a climax of him driving a Lamborghini down the train tracks at a freight train driven by the villain; an urban legend has him quitting two weeks before filming over orange juice in his trailer.
Scorsese was offered the director's chair while trying to get Last Temptation of Christ made, was bewildered by the script and dismissed it.
Earlier context: Eddie was hired two weeks before filming on a script kicking around since the 70s, a cop-comes-to-another-town movie set up for various stars and directors, and he transformed it with improv; it does not work with Sylvester Stallone, who would have made it a dramatic action movie, and if Stallone is in that cigarette truck the movie weighs 150 pounds more; with anyone else it would be actively bad because we know who killed his friend in the first 30 minutes.
The parts of Bogomil, Rosewood and Taggart were probably not rewritten after the casting changes, so the other actors are playing a script written for Mickey Rourke or Stallone with Eddie as the star; it was hard for them to handle his ad libs because takes got ruined by laughter.
Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to play Hans Landa, which would have meant doing the movie in English since he could not have learned German and French in time, though the joke is that a guy who slept in a carved-out bear might have taught himself.
Michael Fassbender tried out for Landa a couple of times and was heartbroken, then got the call that he had Hickox at the expense of Simon Pegg, who chose Tintin instead, a sliding-doors moment the hosts call very tough since they love Pegg.
Adam Sandler was rumored to play the Bear Jew and would have nailed the Teddy Williams thing; Nastasha Kinski (as transcribed) was initially going to play Bridget but turned it down, so Kruger got the role, and Kinski, 10 or 15 years older, would have been more a Marlene Dietrich aging starlet; Kruger is so good in the movie.
This is a generation of actors who grew up on Tarantino: Fassbender and friends put on a stage version of Reservoir Dogs in Dublin, and Simon Pegg sat alone in a hotel room anguished over choosing between Spielberg's obvious blockbuster and Tarantino's World War II movie.
Tarantino struggled over casting Melanie Laurent because he thought she was too famous and wanted to discover someone new; she insisted she was not famous and convinced him.
Tarantino met Pitt at Chateau Miraval, where Pitt lived with Angelina Jolie, and they discussed Aldo over a night and five bottles of the estate's own Pink Floyd rose before he accepted, so the rose was a critical factor.
This was the first time Tarantino worked with an in-his-prime movie star rather than rediscovering an underappreciated asset, and everything since, Django, Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has used stars in their sweet spot, so it may have been more of a risk for Tarantino than for Pitt; complicating things, the Weinstein Company produced and distributed the film, and Pitt, who had refused to work with Weinstein for years over Gwyneth Paltrow, did so because he wanted to work with Tarantino.
Possibly half-assed research rather than a casting what-if: an early iteration when Tarantino first conceived the project was rumored to include Sylvester Stallone as Aldo, Bruce Willis as Donnie Donowitz and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hugo Stiglitz, which would make sense for a late-90s script.
Earlier, during the tavern discussion, Fassbender is said to have tried out for Landa five times, and a host wants to discuss in Casting What-Ifs how both careers would have gone with him as Landa.
Called the all-time record list: "Bert" Reynolds declined Edward and in 2012 said he made a mistake after seeing the love-making scenes. — Bill Simmons
Al Pacino turned down Edward after a screen test with Roberts; that movie does not work. — Bill Simmons
John Travolta auditioned, and had turned down American Gigolo, which made Gere a star. — Bill Simmons
Read as half-assed internet research: Gere was about to turn the part down when Roberts slid him a "please say yes" Post-it; the hosts doubt it. — Bill Simmons
Gere turned down Gordon Gecko in Wall Street; Michael Douglas is floated for this movie, and Robert "Radford," who did a similar role in Indecent Proposal five years later.
Molly Ringwald turned it down and regrets it; Diane Lane nearly played Vivian but pulled out over scheduling; "Michelle Fife" turned it down. — Bill Simmons
Several other actresses allegedly turned it down, which the hosts do not believe. — Bill Simmons
Stallone cannot win because his Golden Globe speech failed to thank Coogler first, which may have cost him the Oscar; he seemed apologetic. — Bill Simmons
Asked Coogler or Michael B, the answer is Coogler.
Another goes with Coogler too: the movie could have gone wrong a hundred ways and he made it great, and with Black Panther this movie gets him the nod.
Black Panther would not happen this way without Creed being a great film people wanted to see. — Sean Fennessey
A participant invited by name at the end, after being asked whether his mic is on, says Coogler won it for Stallone by reviving his acting career with a nomination and reviving the dead Rocky franchise, two victories; called the best take yet. — Wesley Morris
