Stallone Vs. Schwarzenegger: The Box Office

We’re continuing our look at who really is and/or ultimately will be the biggest action star in movie history, Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Last week we had a look at who ruled which era and had ‘better’ movies.  It’s sort of too close to call in that regard.  So to dig deeper we’re now going to look at who ruled the box office and who will potentially rule it between the two in future.

Total Numbers

Sylvester Stallone’s highest grossing movie has been The Expendables 2, with around 302 million, whereas Arnold Schwarzenegger’s highest grossing movie has been Terminator 2, with 520 million.  As far as single achievements and one-time takes go, Schwarzenegger has delivered bigger than Stallone.  As far as totals are concerned, on the face of things Arnold Schwarzenegger’s total box office draw to date has been $1.95 billion.  Stallone’s box office draw in total has been 2.09 billion.  

So in raw numbers, while Schwarzenegger’s biggest movie has outdrawn Stallone’s biggest movie, Stallone takes the box office battle in total.  Thus far that is, this year Schwarzenegger has a tent pole movie coming out (Terminator: Genisys), with an additional indie movie (Maggie) in the pipe too.  Sylvester Stallone has Creed, a smaller production than Terminator.  While Terminator: Genisys is expected to perform poorly, it could break the 95 million needed to hit parity with Stallone.

The Expendables Factor

But hold on a minute, as I’m sure Stallone fanboys might want to point out, among Schwarzenegger’s totals, The Expendables series is included.  And in those movies Schwarzenegger barely made cameos.  That’s where things become blurry, because while these are definitely more Stallone movies than Schwarzenegger movies, there can be no doubt that they’re ensemble movies.  But to remove doubt, looking before The Expendables movies, Stallone still had the edge over Schwarzenegger with cumulative box office total.  Escape Plan by the way, obviously paired with both actors, they both deserve the numbers for that one.

Schwarzenegger Throwing Deadlier Punches

But does total box office really point out who was bigger here?  Sylvester Stallone may have made more bank at the box office, but it also needs to be pointed out that he also made far more movies.  On average Schwarzenegger’s name has been attached to 35 movies which have grossed 1.95 billion.  This gives him an average taking of around 56 million per movie.  Stallone on the other hand has appeared in and/or had his name attached to 50 movies for a total revenue of 2.09 billion, which is an average of around 42 million per movie.  Stallone also had established himself before Schwarzenegger and remained a star as Schwarzenegger was on hiatus.

All said, it appears that Schwarzenegger is the bigger box office star, at least in terms of averages.  I expect that he might also come out as the cumulative winner by the end of this year, with Terminator: Genisys, even while technically bombing at the box office, nonetheless taking in enough money to catch up to Stallone in total.  From there, we’re probably looking at Conan Vs. Rambo, in perhaps the final box office battle between these two.  I’d say Rambo might edge out Conan, but in the end, Schwarzenegger’s potent average will be hard to beat.

To be continued…