Sylvester Stallone admits he thought Grudge Match was absurd

Posted on 22 January 2014
By James McAllister
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Grudge Match star Sylvester Stallone has revealed that he was unsure about taking on a role in Peter Segal’s new project because he felt it would parody his previous work too much.

The veteran actor said: “I had no intentions of doing this. It was something I thought was absurd. No one wants to see another boxing film, especially when you’re 160-years-old.”

Stallone’s co-star Robert De Niro has referenced previous role in Analyze This, a film which parodied the famous fruit stand scene from The Godfather, but Stallone was conscious that Segal’s Grudge Match would be too much of a parody.

Segal said: “There was good and bad aspects of getting this green-lit. The good part was we knew who had to be in this movie. The bad part was if we didn’t get those guys, there would be no movie.”

“So I had to convince Sly this was a way to do a really interesting story, without holding a gun and killing someone.”

But, the movie is not entirely without reference to Rocky. According to Segal Stallone allowed two references to his previous work into the movie.

He said: “I thought, “Well, okay. There’s one wink directly at ‘Rocky I,'” but I wasn’t sure how Sly would respond to that. I had been telling him very clearly that this was not a spoof and it’s not a spoof, but he liked that joke so much he said, “Actually, I think you should come up with bookends.”

Grudge Match is due to hit cinemas this Friday.

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