Sylvester Stallone on AI in Hollywood: 'It makes things so much easier'

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Maybe John Rambo wasn't always a one-man killing machine.

AI can help tell that story, and perhaps one day soon it will, says the living, breathing soul of John Rambo: Sylvester Stallone.

"If Harrison Ford, myself, or another actor wanted to do the prequel — like how did this guy get so screwed up, like in Rambo. You have AI now, which they tested, and they take me to 18 years old, when he was happy-go-lucky, he was captain of the team, he was the most popular person in school. He joined the army because he thought this would be fun for two weeks. And then you see the metamorphosis on how his soul was torn out of his body. That stuff is fascinating," Stallone said in a new episode of the Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast (video above; listen in below).

The use of AI remains a hot-button issue in the Hollywood creative community amid fears that it will lead to job losses. The reality is that AI is already being used, and on some big movie projects.

Iconic actors from Stallone's generation, including Joe Pesci and Al Pacino, alongside Robert De Niro, were extensively de-aged using AI-driven visual effects software in Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" to portray their characters across several decades.

More recently, Harrison Ford was transformed into a 1980s-era Indiana Jones for an opening sequence in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." Lucasfilm used algorithms trained on decades of archived footage.

"Every other person in the movie is real. They are just doing one character," Stallone said. "I said, wow, that would be interesting. There are so many characters [to explore], like how did he get so crazy? How did he become this? Now you would understand the evolution. That is something I am working on."

The non-AI Stallone has earned his spot among Hollywood legends through blood, sweat, and tears.

With that success — ranging from big-screen films "Rocky" and "Rambo" to the series "Tulsa King," which returns for its latest season on Friday on streaming platform Paramount+ — has come an equally impressive business backdrop despite not owning the rights to "Rocky."

Recognizing the power of controlling his own IP, Stallone expanded his earnings beyond simple acting fees — which routinely topped $15 million to $20 million per project — by taking on writer, director, and executive producer roles across his iconic "Rocky," "Rambo," and "The Expendables" franchises.