Dolph Lundgren is an unexpected peacemaker in the Sylvester Stallone/Drago feud
Who better to stick up for Rocky Balboa than Ivan Drago?
Aux News Sylvester Stallone
If you told us that someone involved with Rocky was going to step in and try to ease tensions between Sylvester Stallone and series producer Irwin Winkler—the former is mad at the latter for refusing to give him any of the Rocky rights—we would’ve guessed literally anyone before Dolph Lundgren. He was Ivan Drago! The bad guy! He should want to break Sylvester Stallone, not make him feel better about the fact that he doesn’t own any part of the film franchise he created!
And yet here we are. Not long after Stallone took to Instagram to complain about reports of a Creed spin-off featuring Lundgren’s Drago and Florian Munteanu’s Viktor Drago, saying that the “PATHETIC” Winkler and his “SELFISH USELESS CHILDREN” were exploiting the Rocky brand and refusing to let him have any say in it (despite him being the one who created Rocky Balboa), Lundgren has stepped in to ask everyone to “relax.”
In a statement (via Variety), Lundgren explained that the Drago spin-off is much earlier along than previous reports had suggested, saying, “there’s no approved script, no deals in place, no director.” He also added that he was “personally under the impression” that Stallone was involved either as a producer “or even as an actor.” He said the press reports earlier were “unfortunate” and that he is “in touch with Mr. Balboa,” so “all the fans can relax.”
So it seems like Lundgren at least won’t let the Drago movie happen without Stallone’s approval or involvement, and while that does nothing to assuage his concerns about the selfish useless children or their eventual inheritance of his character, it is a nice gesture. Unless, of course, it’s just a trick to get Stallone to put on his Rocky shorts and get back in the ring with Lundgren in the Drago movie so he can finally kill the Italian Stallion once and for all. He did refer to Stallone as “Mr. Balboa” in that statement… Don’t fall for it, Rock!
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He was Ivan Drago! The bad guy! He should want to break Sylvester
Stallone, not make him feel better about the fact that he doesn’t own
any part of the film franchise he created!
If he cries, he cries.
RockyAgain?
Mandatory blurb about how Lundgren was a chemistry whiz (and world-class karate competitor) who had recently received a Fulbright scholarship to MIT when he met Grace Jones, became her bodyguard, dated her, and followed her advice to quit the egghead route and become an actor. The guy has more going on upstairs than he lets on.
Sometime soon I think we can make this non-mandatory. Given how it has accompanied every post about Lundgren for the last 20 years or so, I doubt there is a person alive who knows who Lundgren is but doesn’t know this.
Agreed. Instead, we should focus on the fact that this man once encouraged a little less conversation, and a little more action:
This video has EVERYTHING!So satisfactioning!
What.The fuck.Was that.
It was exactly what you thought it was.
How is both the best and the worst thing I’ve seen in a very long time?
How is both the best and the worst thing I’ve seen in a very long time?Because that is exactly what it is.
There was me. And I even knew Lundgren played The Punisher without knowing that.
Knowledge is good.
I am that person alive.
And Stallone is big on protecting his image but is a Trump guy who can be prone to go on rants without thinking things through first.
No surprise that Dolph is the bigger guy here.
by 18 inches.
I love how they referenced that in that Expendables movie where he gets them out of the mine with his chemistry knowledge.
Sadly, Grace Jones (or her equivalent) never came to sweep me off my feet and lead me to an acting career when I was in grad school. Then again, I didn’t really have the karate/bodyguarding stuff, I guess.
we all saw the TED talk, thanks for the update though…
Also mandatory to mention that he hospitalized Stallone when Stallone said he should “hit him for real.”
Um, Ivan Drago was the good guy in Creed 2.
Hot take: He was the good guy in Rocky IV.
He was also Venz, a minor character in the James Bond film “A View to a Kill” (his then girlfriend Grace Jones had a much larger role in that as Zorin’s henchman/Bond girl Mayday).
A minor character in a minor Bond film.
That’s how I felt about III when Mr T killed Burgess Meredith.
But but but Rocky represented capitalism, and that were good for us what didn’t like all that thinking in those 80s.
He was a pawn who was fully aware he was being used, and the risks of not playing the part / failure. I wouldn’t say he was the good guy, but he had no real choice and as dumb as that movie was it had the sense to let his humanity show at the end. Soviet propaganda and mercenary system were the bad guys.
I know we get the film we get and making up fan edits in your head is useless, but I think there’s a really great Warrior-style film in Creed 2 that gives equal screentime to Creed/Rocky on the one hand and Drago/Drago on the other. Drago Jr’s story is just as compelling as Creed Jr’s (moreso arguably, since a lot of Adonis’ story was covered in the first film) and I think a dual narrative thing would have worked really well.
I agree that the Drago/Drago Jr. story is very compelling and I do wish we had gotten more than just the few snippets that we did. We kinda got the bare minimum. It still works, but more would have been great.
Irwin Winkler is 12 million years old. Stallone — worth an estimated $400 million — can buy the rights from a presumably more reasonable estate after that.
“Not even death can save you from me!”
Fun fact: Dolph Lundgren is a legit Karate champion. He’s the type of action hero who is an action damn action hero. That’s not even the fun part.
In the Punisher movie, apparently the stunt team couldn’t (or didn’t bother to) find any Japanese stuntmen to play the Yakuza fighters. So they just got some legit Karate champions from Japan. The Japanese karateka refused to pull punches, or fake anything, because it would dishonor their dojo or whatever.
So, when you see Dolph Lundgren fighting Yakuza dudes at the end, he is really fucking fighting them! Any other actor would have walked with that unprofessional Mickey Mouse bullshit, but Dolph just went for it.
What exactly is “unexpected” about this?
Hopefully they were just being playful, but yeah pretty much everyone is aware by now that Lundgren is both a solid person and near superhuman physically/intellectually.
More to the point, it’s fairly widely known that he and Stallone are friends and when your friend is upset you are kind of “expected” to make peace, no? There’s nothing unexpected about a man clarifying his friend’s understanding of a situation.
Great, but when will Dolf appear in a real-life feature length Thundergun Express?
How much dong are we talking here?
“If he dies…he dies.”
Dolph’s diplomatic skills are without peer.