The “from the archives” letter is fantastic. (You’ll see.) — Dan

We’ve all seen our fair share of bad movies — the original live-action Super Mario Bros., Sex and the City 2, the movie with the midi-chlorians and pod racing… those all top (or bottom?) my list. In many cases, those movies were good ideas that just didn’t come out all that well, or low-risk franchises where the actors were already aligned with the roles they’d perform (or both). But there are still a lot of bad movies that don’t fit those categories — one-off films that are just not a lot of fun, and yet, somehow attracted A-list talent.

And in one case, it’s because the lead actor was tricked into doing the movie.

“Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot” is a 1992 comedy — and according to those who have seen the movie, that last word is used loosely — starring Sylvester Stallone (of Rocky and Rambo fame) and Estelle Getty (best known for her work in the Golden Girls). The two are an odd pairing, and that’s the point of the movie. Stallone plays a cop and Getty his overbearing mother, who gets in the way of the former’s police work with hysterical results, except that the results weren’t actually so hysterical to those who watched the movie. As Rotten Tomatoes summarizes, critics found the film “thoroughly witless and thuddingly unfunny” due to a script that “gives its mismatched stars very little to work with — and as a result, they really don't work.” Audiences agreed — the movie has only a 22% positive fan rating (along with a 17% critic rating) on Rotten Tomatoes and an aggregate of 2.2 stars on Letterboxd.

And those audiences weren’t alone. Joining them was another actor — Arnold Schwarzenegger.

At the time, Schwarzenegger and Stallone were both leading men in action movies — Schwarzenegger was a year removed from Terminator 2: Judgment Day and two years from his lead role in Total Recall. The two dominated the genre, each trying to outdo the other with bigger guns, higher body counts, and more memorable one-liners. Their rivalry was intense and, by all accounts, not particularly friendly. As Stallone would later tell Jimmy Fallon, "I really respect this guy. I think he's brilliant. What he's done, what he's accomplished. He's had three different careers. But, I wanted to strangle him."

That never happened, but Schwarzenegger did have a chance to throw a punch — metaphorically, of course. The producers of “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot” approached Arnold before Sly. Schwarzenegger read the script and, as he later told Slashfilm, thought it was terrible. So he passed on the role. But he also saw an opportunity. He and his agent leaked that he was interested in the film — very interested. He even called the director to discuss the project, knowing full well that Stallone's camp would hear about it. As Schwarzenegger recounted in a TMZ special, his agent made sure to tell Stallone's agent that “Arnold really loves it. I think it's fantastic.” The trap was set — and Stallone fell right in.

Years later, Stallone would call the movie “the worst film I’ve ever made by far” joking that “in some countries – China, I believe – running Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot once a week on government television has lowered the birth rate to zero.” But he’s taken that failure in stride. He and Schwarzenegger have since become friends, even sharing the screen in the Expendables franchise. And besides, Schwarzenegger appeared as Mr. Freeze in the 1997 debacle titled “Batman & Robin,” which is probably worse than “Stop!,” so things probably evened out anyway.

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Today’s Bonus fact: As bad as “Batman & Robin” was, Schwarzenegger apparently is fond of the Mr. Freeze costume — because he still posseses it. Bt he doesn’t own it. In 2015, Hollywood Reporter sat down with Peter Macgregor-Scott and others behind the early Batman movie franchise, and it turns out that Arnold leases the costume from the studio — but doesn’t pay very much. Macgregor-Scott explained: “[After filming,] all the wardrobe saved [in case its needed for future films]. The actors would like to walk off with pieces, and we have to be very careful that that happens to an absolute minimum. Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted a costume of Mr. Freeze. It went all the way up to the top of the studio. He had to sign a contract, and I think he pays $1 per year to borrow the costume. .”

From the Archives: Arnold Schwarzenegger's Nasty Note to the California State Assembly: A literal F-you from Arnold.

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And thanks! — Dan