The critical consensus is hardly a barometer of whether or not any movie is destined to find success at the box office, and that’s something Sylvester Stallone has been proving for decades. The action icon has plenty of classics under his belt, but even stinkers like The Specialist can find a way to catch on with audiences.
A 10 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes coupled with a 25 percent audience average from more than 25,000 votes highlights the sexually-charged action thriller’s many shortcomings, never mind the fact it won Razzies for Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple from its five nominations, before being cemented in print as one of “The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made” in the book of the same name.
Despite all of that, though, The Specialist quadrupled its budget at the box office by notching $170 million against production costs of $45 million, while Gloria Estefan’s cover of “Turn the Beat Around” ended up becoming a number one hit on the music charts. That’s a fascinating legacy to say the least, and we haven’t even mentioned that Steven Seagal demanded a $9 million paycheck and the toning down of its sex scenes, which led to Stallone being drafted in when the studio said no.
The Specialist is not good, but that doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining, and iTunes users have been finding that out for themselves after it wound up as one of the platform’s most-watched features, per FlixPatrol. Sly’s demolition expert is hired by Sharon Stone to kill a crime family who murdered her parents, but the affair that ignites between the pair complicates matters when his former partner is revealed to be one of the crooks, in what’s an unintentionally glorious ode to trashy excess.