Stallone’s Rocky Road to a Comeback

Sylvester Stallone is sitting at a corner table in the deserted dining room of the Hotel du Cap, having left his walkie-talkie-toting aides outside the door. A stubborn rain has foiled his plans for holding court on the terrace overlooking the rocky Mediterranean shore, but he’s still in high spirits.

“This place never changes,” he says with a laugh, referring to the film festival. “Everyone says they have the project that’s gonna salvage your career. ‘You’re gonna walk down the aisle (on Academy Awards Night) with this one,’ they say. But it usually turns out to be something like, ‘Hitler: The Early Years.’ ”

Stallone says he already knows how to rev up his career. After appearing in such flaccid films as “Oscar” and “Lock Up,” he has big expectations for “Cliffhanger,” an unadulterated, white-knuckled action-adventure film due June 28.

In “Cliffhanger” and his next two films, the beefy star re-inhabits his most popular screen persona--that of the monosyllabic muscle-bound hero. Stallone says ill-conceived forays into comedy and straight drama persuaded him that there’s no point in playing against type, even though he once longed to give his macho image a rest.

“I’ve finally realized that I have to give people what they want,” says the star, who still turns heads when he strides through the hotel lobby in his chest-hugging black and white “Cliffhanger” T-shirt. “In my case, people don’t even expect the witty one-liners. They just want me to be intense.”

Stallone is no stranger to the Cannes Film Festival, which offers its own brand of intensity. On a visit two years ago, he was forced to flee into the kitchen of the Carlton Hotel when thousands of fans along the Croisette, Cannes’ version of the boardwalk, crushed his car. But this is the first time he’s come to promote one of his own films.

While Stallone says he feels as if he’s “out here in a top hat and cane,” he’s also savvy to the value of promotion. He estimates that his appearances in Cannes and elsewhere will generate up to $20 million worth of free publicity for “Cliffhanger,” a $50-million-plus Renny Harlin film produced by Carolco Pictures and distributed by TriStar Pictures. He even weighed into the crowds again on Thursday, though this time with a bit more planning.

Stallone has agreed to work for free on weekends to make up for the $600,000 in production delays that his four-day foray to Europe is causing on “Demolition Man,” a Warner Bros. film set for release later this year. After that comes “Judge Dread,” based on the comic strip of the same name.

Stallone says he sees shades of “Rocky” and “Rambo” in all three films. While he never really drifted very far from those characters--Oscar wasn’t exactly Hamlet--he clearly sees “Cliffhanger” as his best chance to preserve his place in the pantheon of odds-defying super heroes.

An engaging guy who’s quick to slide into Rocky-like elocution for effect, Stallone says he’s learned a lot over the last few years about the business of making and selling movies. Based on the films they choose to make, he says some film executives could be mistaken for “the bastard children of Custer.”

He especially takes issue with the trend toward softening action films for family audiences. Stallone says the genre merely reflects modern society.

“Violence is supposed to be out and family entertainment is supposed to be in,” he says with a sneer. “Well, I’m in the R-rated business. R is reality. The earth is not a family-oriented spot.”

Stallone calls his brand of film “ultra-realism.” He says people still call out “Rocky” when they see him on the street, which has convinced him of the enduring nature of such roles. “I’m like a product,” he says. “And when people open the lid, they don’t want to find something else.”

So Stallone is giving them what they want in the film he unflinchingly calls his comeback. Would he ever appear in another comedy?

“Not intentionally,” he says with a smile.

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Child’s Play: Independent producer Ed Pressman wasn’t taking any chances when he threw a party to announce a joint venture with the Japanese computer game company Capcom to produce a film version of the “Streetfighter” game. Children were recruited off the street and paid $20 each to play the video games that lined one wall of the room. A source said the company feared that adults would be all thumbs. The only problem was getting the children to end the noisy endeavor when it was time for the speeches.