Sylvester Stallone had an incredible year in 1985 with his Rocky and Rambo sequels, which achieved an almost impossible $600 million box-office feat. Stallone had once been touted as the next Marlon Brando, following the success of Rocky. Unfortunately, Stallone had trouble achieving success outside of the Rocky movie franchise, while his first time playing Rambo in 1982’s First Blood would send his career down a different path. As Stallone explained in Netflix’s Arnold documentary, First Blood led to a new breed of action movies where the focus became the lead actor’s body and less on dialogue or exposition.
For Stallone, the muscular physique he crafted for movies like Rocky, Rambo and Cobra became selling points, while his rival Schwarzenegger had The Terminator and Commando. Their particular brand of testosterone and one-liner-filled blockbusters spawned a generation of action stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme, while Bruce Willis acted as more of an everyman variation on the same premise. As a movie star, Stallone would reach his apex in 1985 with the release of both Rocky IV and Rambo: First Blood Part 2.
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Stallone Rocky IV and Rambo 2 Both Grossed Exactly $300 Million
In both Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rocky IV, their main characters fought against the Soviet Union and won. Both sequels are firmly rooted in the ’80s, both stylistically and politically, but they also remain among Stallone’s most popular films. They also did surprisingly well at the box office, with Rocky IV and Rambo 2 each earning exactly $300 million worldwide. “Rambo: First Blood. Part 2 earned $300.4 million (via The Numbers) upon
release in May 1985, while Rocky IV earned slightly less, $300,373,716 (The Numbers) later that year. That’s a $600 million figure for Stallone—roughly $1.7 billion adjusted for inflation in 2023—which is doubly impressive for two films that were essentially sold in his name alone. Of course, Rocky already had his own audience, although the success of Rambo 2 essentially turned the character into the poster boy for action movies for years to come.
Why 1985 Was Stallone’s Best Box-Office Year Ever
Stallone’s $600 million feat with his Rocky and Rambo movie franchises was essentially a case of right place, right time. The ’80s was a decade of gloss and excessive, with action movies becoming bigger and bolder in every way. 1985 just happened to be the year Stallone hit the zeitgeist in just the right way, with his and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s films essentially being the superhero movies of their era.
Sylvester Stallone himself was uniquely attuned to pop culture during this period in a way he would never quite recapture in the years that followed. His $600 million year with Rocky and Rambo was by far his biggest at the box office, but subsequent entries in both franchises would score significantly less. Rambo 3, for instance, cost far more to produce than its predecessor but only earned $189 million worldwide three years later. Of course, it’s the fate of every movie star to reach a certain peak and slowly dip from there, and for Sly, 1985 was a year of success few stars of his caliber ever reach.