Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted 'Terminator 2' to have 150 on-screen deaths so that he could 'outdo' Sylvester Stallone's kill count

• Arnold Schwarzenegger said he wanted "Terminator 2" to be bloodier so he could outdo Sylvester Stallone.
• The two, both action stars of the 1980s, have openly spoken about their past rivalry.

Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he didn't want to be outdone by fellow actor Sylvester Stallone when it came to on-screen violence, but "Terminator 2" director James Cameron shot down his calls for bloodlust in the film.

Schwarzenegger spoke about his career in a panel at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Wednesday. The actor and politician said that while Cameron was a "brilliant" writer, he was initially skeptical of Cameron's original pitch of him becoming a "good Terminator" in the second film.

"I said, 'What do you mean a good Terminator?' I say, 'I was killing 68 people in the first one.' I say, 'In the second one I have to kill 150. We go up,'" Schwarzenegger recounted telling Cameron, rattling off various ways that they could have brought about new casualties on screen from cutting throats to running people over with a car.

"'I got to outdo Stallone,' I say. 'Remember, My whole mission is that I gotta be number one in killing the amount of people on the screen,'" the actor continued. "So he says, 'Arnold, stop it. You're a very sick guy.'"

Both Schwarzenegger and Stallone have openly discussed their rivalry as 1980s action stars. In "Arnold," a Netflix docuseries about Schwarzenegger, Stallone said that his counterpart was a "superior" action hero who had "all the answers," the "body," and the "strength."

Schwarzenegger, for his part, said that he felt that he was playing "catch up" with Stallone, given that the first two "Rocky" films came out before his first major film "Conan the Barbarian."