The question I’ve been asking myself since the TIFF world premiere of I Play Rocky, is if it would do for star Anthony Ippolito what the original Rocky did for Sylvester Stallone? Certainly, the crowd-pleasing film earned its share of fans, and so did Ippolito’s performance as Sly when he was still a young actor trying to get Rocky off the ground with himself in the title role.
Amazon MGM has dropped a new trailer for I Play Rocky, starring 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 Rocky screenplay 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 Dillon 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, Robert Morgan, and Stephan James as Carl Weathers.
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.
You can check out my early review here.
Amazon MGM Studios will release I Play Rocky in theaters on November 6th.
The film is an electrifying true story about an unknown actor with an unshakable belief that he wasn’t just meant to write Rocky—he was meant to be Rocky Balboa. Told “no” at every turn, Sylvester Stallone bets everything on himself, holding the line on playing the lead against seemingly impossible odds. The result is the ultimate underdog story behind the ultimate underdog movie.
