Revolving around the storyline of a small-time boxer from Philadelphia, the Rocky franchise breasted a new set of fire into Sylvester Stallone and his repute in Hollywood. The ‘70s saw a meteoric rise in action content and the rise of legendary heroes of the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sean Connery, and Clint Eastwood. Differentiating himself from the rest, the Rocky Balboa star set on quite a different path for his career, one that would have the studio question their faith in him before betting big.
Comprising nine movies, the pop culture-defining action franchise originally had quite a different set of plans than what made it on screen. Additionally, the initial reluctance set forth by the production house could have derailed not only Stallone’s career as a revered action hero but also the mass appeal of the franchise. Yet, a few key decisions set everything in order and gave a complete overhaul to the actor’s early career.
Sylvester Stallone “fought” the studio for starring in Rocky
Carrying a net worth of about $400 million, The Expendables actor stands today as one of the most bankable faces in Hollywood. However, the start of his career had him positioned more as a screenwriter than an actor, at least for his now iconic franchise. A while before the release of Rocky in theaters way back in 1976, Sylvester Stallone sat with the Hollywood Foreign Press (via Golden Globes) and opened up on how the studio initially had reluctance to cast him as the lead.
Disappointed in the early ‘70s cinema’s lack of portrayal of stories on grit and determination, the actor set off on a quest to write the script to address this issue. Remarkably, in just three days, he was ready with a working script for a character named Rocky Balboa, based loosely on a real-life boxer named Chuck Wepner with fighting styles from Rocky Marciano.
Going on to present the script to Gene Kirkwood, Chartoff-Winkler production company, he was met with a surprise when they liked the script but did not quite envision him as the lead, having him state that:
They found it to be really refreshing in an age when movies had bullets, cars and gore, offering instead human people that are warm and loving. That seemed to be a novelty.
Yet, he did understand their viewpoint and concluded that:
After that, we fought for a few weeks about whether I was going to play the role or not, but it really wasn’t fighting, it’s their obligation as businessmen to not lose money. And it was not a matter of me not being bankable; my point was that people don’t come to see a star, they come to see a film. And once that was conveyed, they gave us the money and told us to take the bus to Philly and make a movie.
Making the actor synonymous with success, once green-lit to be made, the franchise climbed onto the ladder of box-office success.
How Rocky became a cinematic role-model
Before the release of his 1976 flick, Sylvester Stallone faced a tough time in cracking through showbiz. The star’s then-latest movie, The Lords of Flatbush, failed and had him contemplating. Yet, he channeled his anguish into hope and, in his own words, “took my particular position of failing as an actor, and I put it into the body of a fighter”. In return, the movie struck a chord with the masses, and the underdog story became a celebrated classic.
Portraying the American dream and highlighting social commentary, Sylvester Stallone had a wider impact on the prevalent culture with Rocky than just his acting career, with his film serving as an inspiration for later action and sports biopics. Moreover, originally planned very differently, as mostly a trilogy, the franchise bludgeoned into a set of nine movies including the Creed spin-offs, with more than $1 billion in box office revenue without adjusting for inflation.
