A titanic clash between two gods of the action genre. Who comes out on top...and why?
1) Best Action Movie with a title involving Blood-
Stallone: First Blood
Van Damme: Bloodsport
Who Takes it?
This is one of the tougher, Van Damme v. Stallone catagories as both of these movies did very, very well on small budgets. Not only that, but they were action packed and entertaining as hell. Many would argue this is Van Damme's Citizen Kane and he has never been better. For Stallone, Rambo would serve as a blueprint of the subgenre of all future, haunted-vet-takes-on-army-action-movies...even Universal Soldier! (but is not Stallone's best movie).
Bloodsport had a $1.5 million budget and pulled in $29 million in gross. First Blood was made for a measly $14 million and raked in more than $125 million. Clearly, Stallone has the edge here...or does he?
If you break it down in terms of percentage return on the original investment you might be surprised to note that while First Blood had a solid gross of more than 9x the budget, Bloodsport's gross was 19x!? the original budget. Therefore, the Van Damme movie had a greater return on what was put into it. Does that make it the better film? Not necessarily - while Rambo was ultimately a more popular character than Frank Dux, his "first" movie did not perform as well percentage wise. Plus, Bloodsport features one of the all time best training montages.
Winner: Van Damme.
2) Best "Oscar Worthy" Movie
Stallone: Rocky
Van Damme: Universal Soldier (Slim, slim pickings Jean-Claude)
Most people are handing this catagory to Stallone hands down, but return with me to 1992 when Entertainment Weekly predicted (largely on the strength of his haunted performance in the film Universal Soldier) within ten years, Van Damme would hoist an Oscar. It was a bold and ultimately short sighted prediction given the years of personal torment ready to ensue. In terms of money and gross percentages on these movies it is not even close (Rocky $225m with the movie pulling in an astounding 204x its budget! - Universal Soldier $102m with only 4.4x the budget) Stallone was a runaway freight train. Plus, he actually won the Oscar for Rocky. No contest.
Winner: Stallone by a landslide.
BONUS: The Rocky sequels. Enough said.
3) Personal Turmoil
Van Damme has been married 5 times (twice to his current wife) and had serious cocaine problems in past. These have been linked to the fact he suffers from bipolar disorder.
He has not had a movie theatrically released since 1998.
Stallone has been married 3 times, and has been with his current wife since 1997. Ironically in his Rocky movies, Sly took great pains to show he was steroid free in his training. He even went as far as showing his opponent in Rocky IV (Ivan Drago) using them to get an edge. Unfortunately, it was (shock!) all a lie and Stallone was caught with large, large amounts of steroids.
Stallone has had several theatrical releases as of late (mostly resurrections of characters that should be long buried).
Winner: Sadly, Van Damme
4) Best, Worst Movie
Stallone: Judge Dredd (Honorable mention to Rocky Balboa - when the premise of the original Rocky in the 70's was that of an over the hill fighter this was an abomination. Given what we know about fighters going too long - see Ali v. Holmes - Stallone should literally be forced to watch this turkey, er, movie for a dozen years straight).
Van Damme: Double Team (with...Dennis Rodman!)
Shockingly, according to Wikipedia, both of these movies made money. Actually. (Keep in mind I limited myself to theatrical releases and ignored Van Damme's 12 plus years of straight to DVD hell). Double Team did better percentage wise as it was relatively cheap to make at $30 million and made $90 million. Judge Dredd (for which there really is no excuse) cost an astounding $85 million to produce but only made back 1.3x its budget.
Winner: Van Damme (for the Rodman camp factor?) no, no Stallone! Stallone! No. No, lets just call this one a draw. In fact, forget this catagory even really exists.
5) Comeback Bid and Intangibles
For me, this was the make or break catagory. Stallone wins the sequel battle as the Rocky or Rambo franchises will dominate anything Van Damme can put up. Van Damme did have some good, late 80's / early 90's movies (Hard Target, Timecop, Street Fighter, Sudden Death - takes place in a hockey arena) and recently made a comeback playing...a broken down version of himself in JCVD that garnered legit buzz. Really, though, he was playing himself - how much credit can you give the guy? Though his movie marathon name (Wham Bam Van Damme) is better than Stallone's.
Stallone, also, has some iconic roles and movies: Hell, even Cliffhanger is better than most of what Van Damme can boast. In addition, Stallone's "comeback" has been much more publicized. He made both a new Rocky and Rambo. This summer he put (quite literally) every action star in the world (except Van Damme!) in his new movie The Expendables. It is pretty much an ode to the action movies he has made over the years.
Winner: Stallone - not even close
Overall Winner: While some of the numbers shockingly support Van Damme, he has not had anywhere near the cultural impact or overall box office performance of Stallone. Additionally, any of the Rocky movies (except 5 or 6...let's pretend they didn't happen) could take all of Van Damme's movies (with the possible exception of Bloodsport). In the end, Stallone won a freaking Oscar for what may be the best boxing movie of all time. Stallone is the champ of this action star face off.
