On a recent episode of Ike Barinholtz’s Funny You Ask podcast, Seth Rogen dismissed Sylvester Stallone’s fifty-year filmography. The exchange went viral this week:
Barinholtz: “What’s the over/under on actual good Stallone movies? I think it’s like four.”
Rogen: “Demolition Man. Tango and Cash is enjoyable, but it’s not a good movie. I don’t give a s*** about any Rocky movies.”
Barinholtz: “Stallone is maybe not as good as Schwarzenegger. Not even close. Predator alone is better than anything Stallone has made.”
Rogen: “Stallone has no Terminator 2, no True Lies. Schwarzenegger is in legitimately great movies.”
These are the opinions of a man whose most recent starring role grossed $5 million at the domestic box office on a $35 million budget, earned a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, and received a C- from audiences on CinemaScore. The film was Animal Farm, directed by Andy Serkis and distributed by Angel Studios, in which Rogen voiced Napoleon the pig — reimagined as an explicit Donald Trump caricature. His Napoleon dances like Trump at campaign events, uses the rhetorical tic “many animals have been saying,” and shouts “BORING!” at enemies. One scene depicted him doing “an extended fart as a demonstration of what freedom really means.” Geeks and Gamers described Rogen’s performance as “utterly destructive,” noting that “every time he speaks, the illusion breaks. You’re no longer watching a character in Orwell’s world — you’re watching Seth Rogen doing Seth Rogen.”
The film was a disaster on every commercial metric. In its second weekend, per-theater average dropped to $310 domestically. It grossed $660,000 that frame. The most savage summary came from its own box office data: George Orwell’s most enduring political parable, refashioned as an anti-Trump fart joke cartoon, could not find $6 million worth of Americans willing to watch it.
Stallone, by contrast, turns 80 next month. He created Rocky, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards over Taxi Driver, Network, and All the President’s Men. He created Rambo. He is currently in his fourth season of Tulsa King on Paramount+, one of the most popular shows on that platform. President Trump appointed him as a special ambassador to Hollywood earlier this year alongside Jon Voight and Mel Gibson, a role that generated significant cultural attention. He has starred in nearly 100 feature films across six decades. He still signs swords and Rocky gloves at conventions for fans who line up specifically to meet him.
Rogen’s dismissal of the Rocky franchise as films he does not “give a s*** about” is, among other things, a dismissal of the Best Picture winner from 1976. His argument that Schwarzenegger’s filmography is superior is defensible on its own terms — Terminator 2 and Predator are legitimate benchmarks. His standing to deliver that verdict from the position of a man whose last film lost thirty million dollars playing a Trump-fart-joke pig is considerably weaker.
The conversation on the podcast was framed around Stallone as a Trump appointee, which Barinholtz referenced as the setup for the filmography debate. The political context was not incidental. Rogen is a reliable progressive activist who has consistently used his platform to signal opposition to Trump. The Animal Farm choice was the logical extension of that — a political film, poorly received, that made almost no money. Dismissing Stallone’s career from that perch requires a specific kind of confidence.
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Not only was it best picture but it was #1 that year. I was on a podcast about it recently.
Even if true, which it isn't, that is 4 more "good" quality movies than Rogen ever made.