Puncher’s Chance, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #214 | @MDWorld

February 7, 2013 Arthur Tebbel 1 Comment

Dear Art,
I don’t know what’s happened to this world but I’m not sure I want to go on.  In the last three weeks movies have come out featuring three of the biggest names in action movies in the last three decades.  I am referring to myself, Jason Statham and Arnold Schwarzenegger but out movies and each of them died like a dog.  We opened at sixth, fifth, and ninth respectively.  My movie actually made the least amount of money.  What the hell is happening?  We’re still culturally relevant god dammit!  We even proved it when all three of us were in the smash hit The Expendables 2 last year.  Surely people haven’t tired of all of us so quickly, what’s really going on here?
-Sylvester Stallone

Sly,
I know that it’s been fashionable for over a decade to make fun of how old action stars from the 80s have gotten but I have to think the jokes are finally hitting home right?  The movies where you’re all just too old for this shit (with apologies to Danny Glover) have been being made for 15 years.  You and Arnold are a combines 131 years old.  Jason Statham is the spring chicken at 45, old enough to have a child in high school.  When your ideal target audience is men in their teens and 20s you probably shouldn’t be giving them movies full of people old enough to be their father’s, or in Statham’s case old enough to be the boss they hate.

I feel bad giving you too much grief because you are clearly a talented man.  You wrote Rocky, a great script by the way, and a number of your other movies so you’re clearly more intellectual than many of your contemporaries.  I have always suspected that Statham has a smaller part in The Expendables 2 than he did in the first one because he upstaged you but I hope you’re better than that.  I also feel bad shitting on Jason Statham because the Crank movies are the best action franchise in the 21st century and it isn’t even close.  Those movies are brave little action wonders.  I have no problem saying Arnold is an asshole.  He hasn’t starred in a movie in a decade and he spent that time doing a terrible job governing the state of California.  The audience has wandered away from him and might never come back.  That’s a shame because he had a really good run from Conan the Barbarian through Jingle All the Way, which is actually a great movie and totally holds up.

Ultimately you have to be able to change or die.  I don’t know what parts are really out there for an action star in their 60s.  I doubt you can suddenly start getting serious roles if only because you look so damn cartoonish after spending 20 years trying to look young and fit at all costs.  I wouldn’t buy you as a cantankerous grandfather in a comedy or as anyone’s mentor in anything.  That leaves playing people who are in some way or another broken down and I don’t know how many times you can remake The Wrestler before people just stop going at all.  You might just literally be too old for this shit and need to stop before you get to the point where you’re actively losing studios huge sums of money.  You had a good run champ.