The 45-Year-Old Thriller That Kicked Off Sylvester Stallone’s Worst Movie Habit

There’s a 45-year-old thriller that can be blamed for creating Sylvester Stallone’s worst habit as a movie star. Before the success of 1976’s Rocky, Stallone was a struggling actor/screenwriter who only appeared in supporting roles in movies like Death Race 2000. Rocky transformed his fortunes overnight, but what’s easy to forget is it took him a few years to find his groove as a star. Most of his non-Rocky movies struggled at the box office, and it wasn’t until the success of 1982’s First Blood that he proved he could open a movie without his most iconic character.