Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Peter Farrelly and Peter Gamble‘s I Play Rocky (Amazon/MGM, 11.6), and certainly the most surprising by any measure, is the fact that Sylvester Stallone had and still has no connection to it…not creatively, contractually, consultingly, nuttin’.
“I was shocked to read [about] it,” Stallone told The Playlist‘s Rodrigo Perez last September. “I have zip to do with it.”
A docudrama about the development and production of Stallone’s Rocky, which won a Best Picture Oscar and launched Stallone’s acting career, I Play Rocky is going to make M-O-N-E-Y when it opens in early November.
Academy wokeys are still out to “get” Farrelly over Green Book having won the Best Picture Oscar in early ’19, but I Play Rocky might snag a few nominations regardless.
Farrelly directed; Gamble wrote the screenplay. You can tell it works. You can tell that Anthony Ippolito‘s performance as Stallone is a slam-dunker. It’s an urban northeastern goombah movie — a hit waiting to happen — yo!
Urged on by wife Sasha Czack, Stallone wrote the Rocky screenplay in three and a half days. He refused to allow the film to be made without him playing the lead; United Artists eventually agreed to cast Stallone after he rejected a six-figure deal for the film rights.
Principal photography began in January 1976, with filming primarily done in Philly. Having cost roughly $1 million to produce, Rocky premiered in New York City on 11.20.76, and was released on 12.3. Rocky became the highest-grossing film of 1976, earning roughly $225 million worldwide
It costars Anna Sophia Robb (Sacha), Toby Kebbell, P.J. Byrne, Stephan James, Jay Duplass, Robert Morgan, Tracy Letts and Matt Dillon.