Sylvester Stallone’s Oscar-winning 1976 classic, Rocky, is the ultimate sports underdog story, emulated by hundreds of movies. But that theme, of fighting from underneath to succeed, is true of Stallone’s fight to get the movie made, and to be its star. He famously wrote the screenplay in just a handful of days, and then had to win the lead role when nobody wanted to cast him in it. That story is a crowd-pleaser that has always needed to be told, and this fall it will in Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky.
The first trailer has just arrived for I Play Rocky, starring Anthony Ippolito as a young Stallone. Ippolito, looking like a Stallone dead ringer, previously transformed into Al Pacino in 2022’s The Offer, and looked just like him, too. Kinda weird how he can do that. The story, penned by Peter Gamble, follows Stallone as he takes a bet on himself by writing the script for Rocky for himself to lead, but he must convince others that he has the acting chops.
AnnaSophia Robb plays Stallone’s first wife, Sasha Czack, joined by Matt Dillion as Frank Stallone Sr., PJ Byrne as producer Irwin Winkler, Jay Duplass as Rocky director John G. Avildsen, plus Tracy Letts, Toby Kebbell, Erik Palladino, and Robert Morgan.
Sylvester Stallone himself has nothing to do with the film, which is sad, but he has no real control over the rights anymore.
This is Farrelly’s second film this year after the dreadful comedy, Balls Up. It’s been eight years since Farrelly shocked everyone by winning the Best Picture Oscar for Green Book, and this looks like it could be his strongest effort in quite a while.
Amazon MGM Studios will release I Play Rocky in theaters on November 6th.
