“Rocky” Musical Moves Forward

On June 1, 2011, Patrick Healy, in the New York Times, wrote a piece titled, “Gonna Fly Soon: A ‘Rocky’ Musical is Moving Forward.”   Here are a few tidbits:

  •  The creators and producers, which include “Rocky” star and screenwriter Sylvester Stallone, held a private reading of the work in New York in April, according to Mr. Meehan and a member of the producing team, Barbara Darwall.
  • … they described the reading as creatively successful and said work was continuing toward the goal of mounting the musical in Germany in the fall of 2012 — and then, they hope, bringing “Rocky” to Broadway in the spring of 2013.
  • The project began about eight years ago, Mr. Meehan said, when Mr. Stallone called him about making a musical of “Rocky.” Mr. Stallone holds the rights to the story, Mr. Meehan and Ms. Darwall said.
  • He [Mr. Meehan] described the show as a small-orchestra, small-cast production, with about five principal characters and a plot that tracked closely to the first “Rocky” movie. He added that Mr. Stallone was an artistic partner and producer, not a potential cast member.

Of course other sites picked up the news…

And many other sites.

 

Lady Gaga Gaga Over Rocky Balboa

On May 23, 2011, Artist Direct posted an article titled titled “Lady Gaga Says Rocky Balboa is Her Dream Man.”  Gaga is quoted as saying…

  • Rocky is my favorite movie – I love Rocky 3 because he gets his ass kicked in the first round and comes back.

Lady Gaga goes on to say…

  • “The Edge of Glory means a lot to me – it was written when my grandfather died. That song is about looking life in the eye and when you die saying ‘I won, I’m a champion’ like Rocky sprinting to the top of the staircase.”

You can read the entire article here.

 

Dave Wachter’s Rocky

Dave Wachter joins us this week with his take on Sly pounding the beef from Rocky.   I’m a huge fan of Dave’s art and own several pieces [and hope to get more in the future]. He’s a tremendous artist, but more importantly an all-around decent guy. You can see more of Dave’s art at his site. – Craig

 

“Rocky” One of Oscar’s Biggest Upsets

On February 20, 2011, Barbara Hagen for Associated Content from Yahoo wrote a piece called 2011: Oscars Biggest Upsets.  In the piece Ms. Hagen looks at movies that seemed least likely to win the Best Picture Oscar, but did.  Here is what she has to say about “Rocky”:

  • Another example of how exceptional acting has influenced the outcome of the Academy Awards was in 1977 when “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone took best picture. Moviefone.com says the performance of “Sly Stallone, [upstaged] the likes of Redford, Scorsese, and Lumet.” When I saw the movie myself, I could see the effort and the work that Stallone put into his character, and I would agree with Moviefone’s statement that Stallone outshined the other nominees for best picture.’

You can read the whole piece here.

Rocky: All Time Best

On February 15, 2011, Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post posted his choices for The Best Boxing Movies of All Time“Rocky” came in at #2 and here’s why…

  • 2. Rocky (1976) — The story of a Philadelphia club fighter who gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to fight for the heavyweight title is an American classic. Some of the fight scenes look phony now, but Rocky still packs an emotional punch. It remains the ultimate Cinderella story.

    I caught a bit of “Rocky IV” on TV the other day and cringed at the scene where Sylvester Stallone makes peace with the Russian fans. It’s laughably, embarrassingly bad and cheesy. But even the sequels can’t tarnish the power of the original film.

You can read the whole list here.