In a clip from "Behind the Mask: The Batman Dead End Story," Sandy Collora explains how he met with Sylvester Stallone after his lawyer — whose partner played golf with the "Rocky" star — set them up. Collora, who admits to being a "huge 'Rocky' fan," remembers calling Stallone and setting up a meeting at the actor's house. When he got there, he was surprised to find that the legendary star was not only interested to hear what he was working on, but was also keen to star in his unofficial Batman project. As Collora put it: "He's like [...] 'What are you working on now?' and I said, 'Well, oddly enough it's a little Batman movie I'm putting together.' He put his drink down, he goes, 'Batman? Really? [...] How sure are you that the studios aren't going to come after you?' I said, 'Well, to be honest with you Sly, I'm winging it, I don't know.' And there's just a long pause and he just goes, 'Alright, I'm in.'" Collora went on to explain how, at first, he wasn't sure what Stallone meant by this comment, recalling how he expected the actor to perhaps fund the project. "At that moment I didn't know what he meant," Collora said. "But what he was telling me is that he wanted to play Batman." At this point in his career, Stallone was trying to get his "Rocky" revisit made, which eventually came out as "Rocky Balboa" in 2006. But the actor has spoken widely about how it took seven or so years to get that project off the ground and relaunch his career. As such, it seems he was willing to appear in a fan film during the period where it looked like "Rocky Balboa" might never make it to the screen. In a separate clip from the documentary, Collora even admits that Sly was "in that kind of funk, before he kind of re-emerged like the phoenix he so wonderfully did," and that this was "the only reason why somebody like that would take a meeting with somebody like me." Stallone obviously didn't end up starring in the short film and his reason for pulling out isn't entirely clear, though according to an MSN article, a threads user by the name of Coty Ellis claimed that the actor exited the project due to pressure from his agent, who felt "Dead End" would be somewhat of a, well, dead end for his client's career. What's more, Mark Hamill was, reportedly, only onboard if Stallone was confirmed, and after the latter left the project, so too did Hamill. Other than his role as Judge Dredd in the most ridiculous sci-fi movie to predict our terrifying present, Stallone would ultimately go on to play Stakar Ogord aka Starhawk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (2017) and "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" (2023). He also voiced King Shark in James Gunn's 2021 effort "The Suicide Squad." It's not quite Batman, but I think that's probably for the best.