Demolition Man

1993’s Demolition Man isn’t exactly the most critically acclaimed entry in the Sylvester Stallone canon, but its classic story of an overly violent cop and an even more overly violent criminal who both wake up in a peaceful, seashell-filled future still has plenty of fans. Apparently, those fans have helped the film pull in a significant amount of profits in the decades since its release, but Stallone says the studio—Warner Bros.—has been screwing him over on residuals. Now Stallone is suing Warner Bros., but he’s framing the lawsuit as a bigger issue than just him not being paid the money he was owed.


According to the BBC, Stallone’s lawsuit—which is coming from his production company Rogue Marble—calls out all movie studios for being “notoriously greedy,” and it specifically notes that Warner Bros. sat on the profits from Demolition Man for years “without any justification.” The story says that Stallone’s original contract entitled him to 15 percent of the film’s profits if it made at least $125 million, which he says it has, but the studio has been hesitant to give Stallone what he thinks he’s owed. So, his lawsuit is asking for “a full accounting of the film’s proceeds” in addition to damages and interest on the money he believes Warner Bros. owes him, and Stallone is reportedly hoping it will also put an end to the studio’s practice of withholding money from people and hoping they won’t notice.