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Sylvester Stallone’s insane ad for luxury pens, watches goes viral

An epic pen ad, told in GIFs

Actor Sylvester Stallone waves to fans while visiting the Rocky statue outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Friday, April 6, 2018. Stallone, who is in town filming Creed 2, visited the statue to dedicate a new plaque at its base.
Actor Sylvester Stallone waves to fans while visiting the Rocky statue outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Friday, April 6, 2018. Stallone, who is in town filming Creed 2, visited the statue to dedicate a new plaque at its base.Read moreTIM TAI / Staff Photographer

With a career in action flicks like Rambo, Cobra, and the too-literally titled Over the Top, Sylvester Stallone is no stranger to the ridiculous. But what may be his most excessive work actually came out just a few years ago — and it focuses on watches and pens.

Back in 2013, Stallone released an advertisement for his "Chaos" line of pens and watches with Italian luxury brand Montegrappa Italia, of which Stallone is a board member. Priced at around $50,000 for the gold versions and $6,000 for the silver, the pieces were inspired by Stallone's action franchise The Expendables, and feature more skulls, snakes, and simulated fire than the movies themselves. The line also features similarly ridiculous cufflinks and an ink well, as watch blog A Blog to Watch notes.

Naturally, such lavish products need a trailer to go along with them, and Stallone obliged. Unfortunately, it flew mostly under the radar, up until this week, when the clip went viral on social media. But at just under four minutes — and with as much machismo as any Stallone flick — it ought to have been released in theaters, if only for its sheer bizarreness.

The clip opens with Stallone philosophizing on the duality of the universe, noting platitudes like "to have light, there must first be darkness," "death does not exist without life," and "to keep order, first there must be Chaos." Similarly, if there is a sensible pen and watch for every broke schmo out there, there must also be ostentatious ones for the rich and flashy — a market with which Stallone, a noted watch collector, is familiar.

From there, the trailer, which is entirely CGI, shows a skeleton on the bank of a river as a light bursts from its chest only to grow into a massive, monolithic tower, complete with a skull on top.

A snake then slithers from the nearby river, winding its way up the tower before a sword magically shoots out of the darkness, only to be caught by a skeleton hand that grows from the top of the structure.

Ever-extravagant, Stallone then covers the whole mess in liquid gold.

That appears to be the origin story of the "Chaos" pen, considering that the trailer then cuts to a closeup of the writing instrument, complete with the descriptions "exotic," "majestic," and "imposing." Doesn't everyone look for that in a pen?

To seal the deal, the commercial let's you know that with the "Chaos" pen, you will have "the power of the written word in your hands." Never mind that the same could be said of literally any writing utensil, ever.

What follows is a scene that can only be described as an acrobatic battle, a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, between the gold and silver versions of the pens on what appear to be the streets of Rome.

That takes up about three minutes of the ad, leaving the last quarter devoted to the "Chaos" watch. But because such an amazing timepiece cannot just be shown outright, the clip shows it materializing onscreen out of a brilliant, golden light.

For however insane the clip is, the "Chaos" line, of course, didn't become Stallone's main gig. His next upcoming film, Creed II, which filmed here in Philly earlier this year, is set for release on Nov. 21.