Escape Plan - which hits Blu-ray on February 4 in the States and March 17 in the UK - marks the first time that Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have shared top billing in a film. So just how did the two biggest names in action cinema go from bitter rivals to best friends?

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January 29th, 1977. The superstars of cinema glide around the Beverly Hilton Hotel in California at the 34th Golden Globes, schmoozing, back-slapping and sharing stories. Two of the nominees present, however, feel like outsiders. They don't have the class of the Beattys or the Eastwoods of the Hollywood crowd, but for tonight at least, they have each other. Sat on the same table and meeting for the first time were Sylvester Stallone, nominated for Best Picture for Rocky, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, nominated for Best Newcomer for Stay Hungry. Later that night - upon hearing his name read out on the stage - Stallone excitedly threw the flowers from his table in the air to celebrate his victory, inadvertently covering peeved table mate Schwarzenegger with soggy tulips. Thus began a rivalry that would last several decades, define an entire era of action movies, and form one of the most enduring friendships in Hollywood history.At first, on the surface at least, Stallone and Schwarzenegger were not really all that much alike. Stallone, an Italian-American who had starred in low-budget fare like Death Race 2000 and softcore flick The Party At Kitty And Stud's before Rocky made him famous, was not the bulky, action hero type, and favoured screenwriting over starring roles. Austrian native Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, came from a bodybuilding background; the former Mr Universe was a glistening Adonis first and an actor second, as evidenced by his first movie, 1969's Hercules In New York, in which his part was dubbed by an American voiceover. They didn't realise it then, but both actors were on a collision course.The rivalry really only began in the mid-80s. First Blood gave Stallone another franchise to complement his Rocky series, and though the first Rambo movie wasn't exactly a high-octane thrill ride, First Blood: Part II took things up a notch, cementing Sly's reputation as an action hero par excellence. In other words, he was on Arnie's turf now. Schwarzenegger had really captured Hollywood's attention in John Milius' Conan The Barbarian, but by the time he shot the sequel, Stallone's success was overshadowing him. "I'm finally getting paid $1m for a movie, but now Stallone's making $3m" he complained. "I feel like I'm standing still." Stallone confirms the pair had it in for each other: "We couldn't stand to be in the same room," he admits. "But I like a good adversary. It makes you lose sleep and get up in the morning and go to the gym."The two screen titans even clashed when it came to romance, both lusting after the same woman. Brigitte Nielsen revealed recently that she had an affair with Schwarzenegger, her Red Sonja co-star, in 1985, while the actor was involved with would-be wife Maria Shriver. The same year, Stallone went one better and married Nielsen, but their tempestuous marriage lasted only two years.Stallone considers his rivalry with Schwarzenegger the product of two hot-headed egos, egged on by the media – by the early '90s, each man knew that baiting the other would result in headlines and press for whatever movie they were promoting at the time. "He was far more diligent than me, I was too reckless," says Stallone. "He's very machine-like and I did consider him an enemy. But, looking back, it was a good enemy."Schwarzenegger agrees: some healthy competition was beneficial for both of them. "Stallone and I were the leading forces in the genre," Arnie says. "We created work for up and coming action stars like Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren and Bruce Willis. The body was key. The era had arrived where muscular men were viewed as attractive. Looking physically heroic had become the aesthetic."The fact was, Stallone and Schwarzenegger knew that neither of them would be quite as popular without the other. The two actors built more than just a career on their screen rivalry, they built an empire: theme restaurant chain Planet Hollywood, backed by Arnie, Sly and Bruce Willis, opened in 1991 in a frenzy of flashbulbs.The two stars began to play up their relationship with cheap shots and digs at each other, even in their movies. Schwarzenegger's 1993 meta action romp Last Action Hero posits an alternate timeline in which Stallone played the iconic role of The Terminator and not him ("He's fantastic!" says Schwarzenegger's hero, Jack Slater. "It's his best performance ever!"). Stallone's sci-fi Demolition Man, released the same year, featured an oddly prophetic gag which sees a character in 2032 reference "the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library" ("He was President?" spits Sly's future cop. "I don't wanna know..."). It's fair to say Schwarzenegger got the best of that exchange.As the years passed, Stallone and Schwarzenegger searched for a movie big enough for the both of them, but no scripts were deemed acceptable, meaning each star had to continue attempting to outdo the other. But the oneupmanship couldn't last forever. Post-9/11, the action hero archetype of old – the muscled, gun-toting, terrorist-killing one-man army – felt like a relic of a bygone age. New, exciting talents were breaking through. In the new millennium, Arnie and Sly were considered dinosaurs.Schwarzenegger wisely put his waning action career on hold for a stint in politics, eventually dominating that arena like he did bodybuilding and acting when he was elected Governor of California in 2003 and put in charge of the world's 12th largest economy. Stallone, however, faced testing times. Despite an acclaimed turn in James Mangold's drama Cop Land in 1997, Sly was not being offered any high calibre roles, and those he did accept usually disappeared without trace. His career nadir began in 2000 when his laughable remake of Get Carter kicked off a string of flops (Driven, D-Tox, Avenging Angelo) that almost extinguished his star completely.It turned out that taking time off from battling over the box office was exactly what Stallone and Schwarzenegger needed to turn their rivalry into a friendship. "There's never been two more competitive people," says Stallone. "But we moved on with our lives and started to mellow a little bit and we actually became really good friends." Arnie would invite Sly to various events in his role as Governor, presenting him with a certificate of recognition for filming comeback movie Rocky Balboa in LA in 2006. When the movie was a huge success and reignited Stallone's career, Sly began sketching plans to repay the favour.Though Schwarzenegger would serve as Governor until 2011, Stallone knew he would have to be the one to bring them together on film after all their years in competition. Rocky Balboa and 2008's Rambo afforded him the required grunt to get a new franchise off the ground: 2010's The Expendables was tailor-made to appeal to the older action fan, with a cast including the very best action stars of the '80s and '90s. Joining Stallone was Planet Hollywood stakeholder Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke and – yes, in one glorious, epoch-shattering cameo – Arnold Schwarzenegger.Though it was little more than tongue-in-cheek fan-service, the scene helped to propel The Expendables to $274m worldwide and proved there was still an appetite to see Arnie and Sly share the screen. 2012's sequel was an even bigger success, with Schwarzenegger building on his part even more, although it was still effectively Stallone running the show.Though they were united in success, Stallone and Schwarzenegger were also united in failure, too. With Arnie's tenure as The Governor officially terminated, he picked up his acting career immediately, accepting the lead role of an ageing sheriff in Kim Jee-Woon's The Last Stand. Stallone, meanwhile, took a hiatus from being expendable to star in long-gestating comic-book adaptation Bullet to the Head. Both movies were released within a week of each another in the UK. Both crashed and burned.Where once the rivalry between Stallone and Schwarzenegger drove them to the top of the box office, now it was clear they were better together. They started hanging out together. They ate together. They even inadvertently scheduled shoulder surgery together. Upon waking up in a hospital bed next to his old rival, a startled Schwarzenegger reportedly remarked: "What the f**k are you doing here?" Stallone knew exactly how to push his best friend's buttons: "I was put on this Earth to irritate him," he smirks.Which brings us to Escape Plan, a hi-tech jailbreak movie from Mikael Håfström that has the honour of being the first film in which Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger share equal billing. Now 67 and 66 respectively, both stars know their rivalry made them the men they are today. "Now we compete within the movie and [Escape Plan] benefits from that. I was really trying to pull out my best performance because I wanted to outdo him," says Schwarzenegger. "It really helped the movie." Stallone agrees that Arnie is the yin to his yang, the salt to his pepper, the Austrian Oak to his Italian Stallion: "When people ask me who is the most extraordinary guy I've ever met," he says, "I answer that it's him."