The main character, Lincoln Hawk, played by Stallone, is a long-haul truck driver who tries to win back his estranged son, Michael, while becoming a champion arm wrestler.

Hawk leaves to compete in the World Armwrestling Championship in Las Vegas, hoping to start his own trucking company with the prize money.

Stunned by his grandfather's deceptions, Michael steals a pickup truck and drives to Las Vegas to find Hawk.

[5][6] Cannon Films presold the movie over the next few years, during which time Stallone appeared in Rhinestone, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rocky IV.

[10] The Kirkeby mansion at 750 Bel Air Road, Los Angeles (also the home of the Clampett family on the CBS comedy The Beverly Hillbillies) was used to portray the Cutler estate.

In late 1986, producer/director Menahem Golan selected Italian composer and record producer Giorgio Moroder as music supervisor for the soundtrack.

Moroder was in charge of creating a concept album with a compilation of new songs in different genres and diverse artists, writing most tracks on the record himself, in collaboration with Tom Whitlock.

It contains music by Frank Stallone, Kenny Loggins (who performs the film's central theme, "Meet Me Half Way"), Eddie Money, and Sammy Hagar.

John Wetton, lead singer of the rock group Asia, sang "Winner Takes It All" for the movie, but after performing the song, it was felt that his voice wasn't "mean" enough, so the track was offered to Hagar, whose version, featuring a bass guitar solo by Hagar's then-bandmate Eddie Van Halen, ended up being the one on the soundtrack.

Over the Top was released by Warner Bros. on Thursday, February 12, 1987, in New York and Los Angeles before expanding to 1,758 theaters on Friday, grossing $5.1 million over the President's Day weekend, finishing in fourth place.

The site's consensus states: "The definitive film about arm-wrestling truck drivers fighting for custody of their children, Over the Top lives down to its title in the cheesiest of ways.

[20] Movie historian Leonard Maltin seemed to agree: "Title merely begins to describe this heavy-handed variation on The Champ...In trying to underplay, Stallone speaks so quietly that you often can't make out what he's saying.

Next, I would've not used a never-ending stream of rock songs, but scored music instead, and most likely would've made the event in Vegas more ominous – not so carnival-like.