Sylvester Stallone has attempted most every action stunt in his superstar career.
But in the Paramount+ Super Bowl spot titled “Stallone Face,” the action icon grabs a huge stone nose, modeled after his own, to climb across a giant Sylvester Stallone head carved into “Paramount Mountain.”
“It was just a matter of time before somebody climbed my nose,” Stallone, 76, tells USA TODAY of the commercial, unveiled Thursday. “It’s just about as big as Everest. So it was inevitable. Luckily, I didn’t have sinuses that day.”
Paramount stars such as Dora the Explorer, “Star Trek: Discovery” Capt. Pike (Anson Mount) and “Reno 911” Lt. Dangle (Thomas Lennon) join Stallone’s daughters Sophia, Sistine and Scarlet at base camp to watch the surreal scaling of Stallone’s solo Mount Rushmore.
The one-minute Super spot (going rate: $7 million for 30 seconds, according to Ad Age) is part of Paramount+’s quirky Mountain of Entertainment marketing campaign.
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“It’s funny, but I thought there was nothing that could top that statue of my dad,” says Sophia, 26, referring to the famed 10-foot Rocky statute that is still a tourist attraction in Philadelphia. “Now it turns out a mountain can top it. What’s better than a mountain?”
In the spot, however, his daughters are less than impressed, dismissing the climb and eventual fall with the words, “He does this.”
His daughters’ eye-rolling is representative of the Stallone family life, also explored in “The Family Stallone,” an eight-part reality series featuring Stallone, his wife Jennifer Flavin and their three daughters coming to Paramount+ this spring.
“Working with my dad is almost like working with a little brother. So we are constantly rolling our eyes at him,” says Sistine, 24. “So it was fitting for us to be like, ‘Oh Sly, he’s climbing his own face and now he’s falling off.’ He says crazy things. He does crazy things. So this isn’t far off from regular life.”
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Just prior to his family Zoom call Wednesday to discuss the commercial, Stallone earned a major eye roll from Sistine at breakfast by pointing out “a very handsome young man” nearby.
“I thought perhaps she should meet him,” says Stallone. “I got in big trouble.”
“Yeah, he basically pointed to this guy and said, ‘Is that the one you think is hot?'” says Sistine. “I wanted to crawl under the table.”
For the Paramount spot, Stallone climbed for hours on an indefinable face built onto a raised platform, but relied on “CGI magic” to transform the mountain into his grunting doppelganger.
“This commercial was more involved than shooting most films, and more expensive. They went all out,” he says.
Stallone has already earned his spot on Paramount Mountain by starring as woefully transplanted New York City Mob capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi in the Paramount+ drama “Tulsa King.”
Youngest daughter and aspiring actress Scarlet, 20, also appeared as the caretaker of Manfredi’s horse Pilot in the series, which ended its first season in January.
“It was amazing, I’ve never done any TV before,” says Scarlet. “I know, I will never get that kind of opportunity ever again to do something with him. But it was a great bonding moment.”
“Wait, a minute, you haven’t been fired, Scarlet,” says Stallone, hinting at a Season 2 return for her character. “What makes you think you’re not coming back? Someone needs to take care of Pilot.”
Noticeably missing from the family Paramount+ commercial is Flavin, who will star in “Family Stallone” after filing for divorce (and reconciling) last year. When asked why she was absent from the spot, Stallone simply turned the Zoom camera to his wife, who was sitting nearby on the couch.
“It’s a big mountain,” says Flavin. “But there was no room there for the biggest mouth, and the one who controls everything. And that’s me.”