Sylvester Stallone’s personal story resonated quite well with the character of Rocky Balboa in his 1976 movie, Rocky. Having written the script, Hollywood did not initially accept Stallone as a hero but the actor continued to be persisting.
After making Rocky his Hollywood breakthrough, Sylvester Stallone reveled in royalties and luxuries as he found worldwide fame for his role. In his Netflix documentary, however, it was revealed that his father was quite jealous of Stallone’s success and even tried to ruin it once!
When Sylvester Stallone’s Father Was Jealous
It has been often observed in movies and series that fathers often get jealous of their sons or daughters if they become more successful than them. Well, this scenario was truly experienced by Sylvester Stallone after his Rocky fame grew worldwide.
In the Netflix documentary, Sly, the American director John Herzfeld talked about how Stallone’s father called him up a few months after Rocky’s release with a script in hand. The script, in question, sounded very similar to the plot of Rocky, and Sylvester Stallone’s dad alleged that the story of Rocky Balboa was his story!
“Rocky comes out. A few months later, Sly’s dad calls me, ‘John, Can I come over and see you?’ He says ‘I got a script. I got the real Rocky. I wrote the real Rocky. I want you to read it.”
John Herzfeld suggested that why don’t he [Stallone’s dad] would run the script through Stallone once.
“He was still competing with Sly. He goes, ‘Hey, I’m writing a script called Sonny. Sly goes ‘What’s that about?’ ‘It’s like Rocky, Sonny’. Sly goes, ‘You can’t do that, dad. It’s my creation. I think my father was jealous”.
In a separate interview, The Expendables actor talked about how he originally wanted the character of Rocky Balboa to die in the fifth part of the franchise. Corporate greed, however, caused his character to suffer through more sequels.
Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Doesn’t Die!
With wanting to give his character of Rocky Balboa, a peaceful death, Sylvester Stallone had hoped that Balboa would die at the end of the fifth part of the franchise. As per CBS News, director Avildsen stated how the ending was supposed to be.
“First of all, in five, Rocky was supposed to die. At the end of the movie he is on the way to hospital, his head is in Adrian’s lap and he dies because he’s taken this great beaten from Tommy Gunn,”
He further continued,
“So we started shooting the movie and a couple of weeks into the shooting I get a call from the head of the studio and they said, ‘Oh by the way Rocky’s not going to die. Batman doesn’t die, Superman, James Bond, these people don’t die’.”
Hence, the character of Rocky Balboa survived with some sequels and then later revived with the Creed franchise. With high ratings, the 1976 movie that started it all, Rocky, is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.
