MFF Data – Audiences and Critics Love Cold Stallone

While working on an assignment last year I was reminded that 1993 was a massive year for Sylvester Stallone. After several years of flops (Rocky V, Oscar, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot), Stallone needed a hit and they came in the form of Cliffhanger and Demolition Man. The critically respected action films pulled in over $400 million worldwide and gave Stallone’s career a much needed boost. These movies don’t have much in common (aside from being awesome), but they do feature Stallone in some very cold situations. In Demolition Man, he’s sentenced to decades inside an ice cube, and in Cliffhanger he battles John Lithgow atop the Rocky Mountains. This got me thinking about other Stallone movies and I started noticing a pattern. Between Rocky, First Blood, Rocky II, Rocky IV, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and The Expendables 2, his “Cold Stallone” films do well with critics and audiences when he’s in a cold location, or frozen inside an ice prison. Also, his love of fur coats inspired Ryan Gosling’s Ken character in Barbie. Good things happen when Stallone is cold.

Here are some examples:

• Expendables 2 – When he meets JCVD’s character for the first time, it’s cold outside. This is the only time in the franchise when Sly seems chilly, and it’s the highest rated film in the franchise.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – He’s introduced on an ice planet.
• Creed – Super cold – Sly’s highest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes
• First Blood – Super cold – Highest-rated Rambo movie
• Rocky IV – He goes to Russia and trains in the snow. It’s the highest grossing movie in the Rocky franchise.
• Creed and Rocky – He’s been nominated for three Academy Awards for his work in Rocky and Creed. Very cold.

I wanted to see if this assumption held up so I rewatched most of his films (I already knew he was super cold in Cliffhanger, Rocky 4, and Demolition Man) and lumped them into three categories

1. Not Cold or Chilly – There are no instances in which he seems chilly
2. Chilly – It’s not freezing outside, but it’s still cold. For instance, In Cobra, a character says “It’s getting cold out here, huh? Yeah. Better get inside..”
3. Cold – In Creed II while he’s sitting by Adrian’s grave he rubs his hands together and blows warm air into them. Dude is cold. He doesn’t have to be cold for the entire film, he just needs to be really cold at least once.

Here are some quick overall stats for Stallone’s career

• Average Worldwide Box Office – $149 million
• Average Tomatometer Score – 44%
• Average IMDb User Score – 6.06

Box Office

• Cold – $193 million
• Chilly – $93 million
• Hot – $130 million

Tomatometer

• Cold – 63%
• Chilly – 38%
• Hot – 35%

IMDb

• Cold – 6.78
• Chilly – 5.98
• Hot – 5.725

Conclusion – Cold Stallone (plus a good script, direction, editing and solid supporting characters) is the best Stallone!

Take a look at this timeline and you’ll notice that Stallone is at his best (for the most part) when he’s cold.

Here’s a quick timeline to further solidify this dumb data.

• 1976 – Rocky – Cold
• 1979 – Rocky II – Cold – Huge hit – Elevated him further into A-list territory
• 1982 – First Blood – Cold – Excellent action film
• 1985 – Rocky IV – Cold – Highest grossing Rocky movie
• 1985 – 1993 – He had some big hits, but nothing huge or critically adored
• 1993 – Cold – Career Comeback – Demolition Man and Cliffhanger
• 1993 – 2006 – Had a few cool films like Copland and Daylight, but it wasn’t great
• 2006 – Cold – Rocky Balboa – It was smart going back to Rocky, and it was very smart to make him cold again.
• 2006 – 2012 – solid run, but nothing Oscar worthy or Rocky IV huge.
• 2012 – The Expendables 2 – Chilly (not cold) – $312 million worldwide. Only chilly Expendables movie and it made bank and has a Fresh Tomatometer score.
• 2016 – Cold – Creed – Huge hit and he got an Oscar nominated
• 2017 – Cold – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. II – Highest grossing film (unadjusted for inflation)
• 2018 – Cold – Creed II – Gross over $200 million and is one of his highest rated films

Here’s a breakdown of his stats so you can check them out. Sure, some of the Cold Stallone movies are soul crushing, but on average, it’s best to go with Cold Stallone.

If you’re bored and want to listen to some podcast episodes about Sylvester Stallone movies, On my Movies, Films and Flix podcast (you can find it anywhere), I’ve talked about Rocky 4 (Episode 526) – Driven (Episode 271), and Cliffhanger (Final Fights episode 32).