Hits or misses, Sylvester Stallone is basically a key part of the fabric of our journey to becoming Outposters. That 80s poster for Cobra loomed large over every gas station / convenience store / VHS rental emporium, luring us towards the wire rack of dreams. Rambo made PTSD exciting, but it was Rocky that really grabbed us.
The pendulum swings when it comes to ranking the franchise. As a kid, the cartoonish battle against the towering Russian was my favorite. These days, I have a weirdly soft spot for Rocky III. Wherever you find yourself on this spectrum, and whenever, you can’t escape the fact that the first movie is tremendous. Moving, uplifting, and heartbreaking all in one.
The story behind how the movie came to be is also something of Hollywood myth and legend. Myth and legend that now has it’s own movie – I Play Rocky.
Now, Amazon MGM Studios has premiered the first trailer for Peter Farrelly’s biopic about the making of the 1976 boxing film.
Anthony Ippolito plays the young Sylvester Stallone, a struggling actor with a partially paralysed face and a speech impediment who writes a script that a big movie studio wants to buy, but he refuses to sell it unless he gets to play the lead.
Turning down an offer of life-changing money, he instead works for next to nothing to get the movie made with himself in the starring role, battling a studio that seemingly wanted him to fail. Also starring are Matt Dillon, Anna Sophia Robb, P.J. Byrne, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Jay Duplass, and Stephan James as Carl Weathers.
Well, I think that looks rather wonderful. Farrelly directs from a script by Peter Gamble. Farrelly, Toby Emmerich and Christian Baha are producing.
I Play Rocky has a limited release on November 6th, then goes wide on November 20th which is the 50th anniversary of the original movie.
