Category: Rocky

Wepner vs Stallone

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Rocky

Chuck Wepner, the fighter who helped inspired Sylvester Stallone‘s “Rocky” movies, plans to sue Sylvester Stallone because Sly has used his name over the years to promote the Rocky series. Sly has said that the Wepner – Ali title fight provided a spark of inspiration for the creation of Rocky.

Wepner is quoted as saying, “I have never gotten one penny from these movies which have made over $1 billion”… “The last straw was when he [Sly] was in Weehawken filming ‘Copland’ a few years ago and told me that he might have a part for me. I went up there, but nothing ever came of it.”

So 27 years after the release of “Rocky,” Chuck has decided to sue. And the last straw happened 7 years ago when Sly said he MIGHT have a part for Chuck.

I wonder, over the years, how many times Chuck has told people he was the inspiration for Rocky. I wonder how many autographs and speaking engagements were prompted because people knew of Chuck‘s connection to Rocky.

This is a pretty sad story.

– Craig Zablo

The Rock Picks “Rocky”

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Honors, Rocky

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was recently asked by the Associated Press to name his favorite movies in several different genres. Here are The Rock’s answers as well as his comments on one of the films.

Buddy Film: “48 Hrs.,”

Western: “Unforgiven,”

Martial Arts: “Enter the Dragon,”

Adventure: “Raiders of the Lost Ark,”

Boxing: “Rocky,” The Rock said. “I love the story of a guy who fights the odds, and he doesn’t have to win — and he doesn’t win.”

Sci-Fi: “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,”

Scariest Action: “Predator,”

Funniest Action: “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,”

I like The Rock as a wrestler and actor — and he obviously has great taste in movies as well! – Craig (Sept. 24, 2003)

“Rocky” Scores Again

Craig / / 2003, Honors, Rocky

 

From Sports Illustrated Volume 99, NO. 4, August 04, 2003
Illustration by: Richie Fahey

The top 50 Sports movies of all time were covered in the Sports Illustrated issue listed above. Here are the top ten, the comments for “Rocky” and the illustration that accompanied the article.

1: Bull Durham

2: Rocky

“In America‘s bicentennial year Rocky Balboa became the first of the post-Vietnam War heroes, a frenzied expression of old-fashioned individualism. A slow-on-the-uptake palooka who gets a chance to survive a fight with the heavyweight champ (Apollo Creed, played with panache by Weathers), Balboa has a Philadelphia story with heart and purity and just enough cruelty for resonance. Stallone informed his loser with a colossal goofiness that was impossible not to watch. He was so convincingly sincere that audiences actually jumped up and screamed for him to win.

3: Raging Bull
4: Hoop Dreams
5: Slap Shot
6: Hoosiers
7: Olympia
8: Breaking Away
9: Chariots of Fire
10: When We Were Kings


Thanks to Big John Beatty!- Craig Zablo

“Rocky” and the “Boxing Renaissance of the Eighties”

Craig / / 2003, Honors, Rocky

On July 26, 2006, Michael Katz posted an article at thesweetscience.com titled “Yo, Adrian, Let’s Hail the Spirit of ’76” which explores the factors that led to a boxing “Renaissance of the Eighties.” The great fighters that came out of the 1976 Olympics played a major role, but Katz also credits “Rocky.” Here’s what he had to say:

There was another major factor in producing the Eighties’ ring revival. “The ‘Rocky’ movie,” said [Boxing Promoter Bob] Arum.Sylvester Stallone’s film, based on so many real boxing nuggets – Rocky Balboa, like Joe Frazier, hitting the sides of beef; the instruction to the corner to “cut me,” when he couldn’t see out of a swollen eye – captured the public imagination. It was more real than the reality series, “The Contender,” which Stallone would attempt many years later.“In the movie,” said Arum, “he had more control – he was the writer and the director.”The Spirit of ’76 remains with us. There’s another “Rocky” movie due this year, but more apropos, if one forgets about the heavyweights, the talent level is extraordinarily high in the real thing.

Thirty years later and “Rocky” is still getting props. And rightly so. For the full report, click HERE. – Craig

“Rocky” Still a Great Example

Craig / / 2003, Honors, Rocky

Michael Booth of The Denver Post in his July 27, 2006 column explores the fact that “not all box-office hits had great expectations.” Booth lists eight movies that defied all expectations and “Rocky” makes the cut. Here’s what he says:

“Rocky” cost less than $1 million, was the brainchild of then-nobody Sylvester Stallone and sported an underdog plot considered naive for a troubled year like 1976. It made $117 million and won the best-picture Oscar.Thirty years later and “Rocky” is still getting props. And rightly so.

For the full report, click HERE. – Craig

“Rocky” Top 50 Best Endings

Craig / / 2003, Honors, Rocky

Filmritic.com has compiled “The Top 50 Movie Endings of All Time” and of course “Rocky” made the list coming in at #37. Here’s what they had to say:

37. Rocky (1976) – As Bill Conte‘s score soars in the background, a bloodied Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) and a hatless Adrian (Talia Shire) finally proclaim their love for one another. And in the distant background, a ring announcer tells a frenzied crowd that our hero has actually lost the fight that held us captive for an entire final act. In one dramatic move, two shy nobodies find their hearts and nothing else matters. -NS

For the full report, click HERE. – Craig

A Rocky Road

Craig / / 2003, Avenging Angelo, Celebs, Champs, D-Tox, Driven, Eye See You, Family, Get Carter, Rocky, Rocky VI, Shade, Unmade Films

A Rocky Road
Sylvester Stallone is in training for another comeback
BY MARK CARO for the Chicago Tribune
Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2003

AUSTIN, Texas — Sylvester Stallone is climbing back into the ring, figuratively in “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” and literally in a sixth “Rocky” movie.

Yes, he has already written “Rocky VI,” which he’s calling “Puncher’s Chance,” the title referring to the idea that once in the ring, any fighter has a chance to land a knockout punch. Stallone — with “Spy Kids 3-D” the only one of his last four movies to actually make it to theaters — is looking for that shot as well.

“Rocky made his moment when he’s 29 years old,” a fit-looking Stallone, who turned 57 on July 6, said while in Austin for the “Spy Kids” premiere. “Now time has moved on, but how do you participate when your options are pretty limited? It’s not as though he’s a painter or a world traveler. He is a fixture in the neighborhood. The neighborhood is decaying. Do you decay with it? And when you try to fight back, (you’re told), ‘It’s ludicrous. Come on! Move on! Don’t be so vain.’

“It’s not about vanity,” he continued, his familiar gravelly voice turning soft. “It’s about, ‘I know I don’t feel as though I’ve hit the bottom. I haven’t dredged the bottom of my well yet, I don’t think.’ There’s a point when you sit back on your life, and you’re on your final days going, ‘You know? I did it all.’ And I don’t know if I’ve done it all. The character.”

These last two words were said as a reminder that he was talking about Rocky, not himself.

But he knows he can’t escape the parallels. Like his most famous character, Stallone has gone from top-of-the-world star to afterthought — a $20 million-per-movie action hero whose most recent efforts have bombed (“Get Carter,” “Driven,” the latter of which he wrote) or, worse yet, haven’t even received a U.S. theatrical release (“D-Tox,” also known as “Eye See You,” “Avenging Angelo,” “Shade”).

“Spy Kids 3-D,” which opened Friday, at least will get him in front of large audiences again. He plays the comical villain, the Toymaker, who has designed a video game that ultimately imprisons the minds of its players. The character’s goofiness manifests itself in multiple personalities that argue with one another: a bald, professor type, a blustery European military commander (Stallone refers to him as “Gooselini”) and a stringy-haired hippie. For good measure, Stallone also plays a TV reporter.

Like most of the movie, his scenes were shot in front of green screens so that computerized scenery and special effects could be added later. Aside from a climactic confrontation with Ricardo Montalban, who plays the Spy Kids‘ wheelchair-bound grandpa, Stallone is mostly acting with himself.

How did he feel about acting without other actors? “I’ve been doing that for the last 10 years,” he quipped, laughing.

Stallone‘s sense of humor may not be one of his better-known traits, but it’s the key reason “Spy Kids 3-D” director Robert Rodriguez said he cast him.

Stallone compared working with a green screen to “being held face down in a bowl of guacamole for three weeks” (though his part took just five days to shoot).

“Yeah, it’s strange. It’s like working without a net.”

Yet “Spy Kids 3-D” feels like a safe move compared with what Stallone has planned. First up is a ripped-from-the-headlines crime drama called “Thugz Life” (formerly “Rampart Scandal”) that Stallone has written and is preparing to direct in his first stint behind the camera since 1985’s “Rocky IV.” He’ll also star as real-life Los Angeles police detective Russell Poole, whose career crashed as he tried to get to the bottom of the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murders.

Then there’s “Puncher’s Chance,” which continues Stallone‘s exploration of counted-out guys who keep forging ahead.

He admits he goofed in giving Rocky brain damage in “Rocky V,” which ended with Rocky brawling with his ungrateful protege on the street rather than in the ring.

“It was a big mistake on my part because nobody wants to see the dark, depressing underbelly of a character they’ve had joy with,” Stallone said.

So Rocky will return to the ring for movie No. 6.

– Craig Zablo

Rocky’s Sixth Round

Craig / / 2003, Celebs, Family, Jennifer Flavin-Stallone, Rocky, Spy Kids 3D, Unmade Films

“Rocky’s Sixth Round”
by Liz Smith for New York Newsday.com
July 28, 2003′

What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It’s for the superfluous we sweat,” said Roman playwright Seneca.

SYLVESTER STALLONE, sitting in dark pants and a gray polo shirt in the lobby lounge of the Four Seasons hotel, looks as if he never breaks a sweat. But judging from his beautifully tanned biceps and deltoids and his flat abs – I’m sure he does. He still works out and takes care of himself. I have known this guy since he hit the heights with “Rocky,” his creation, his inspiration, his super-hit. Stallone looks better today at 57 than he did back in the beginning of what many thought was just an impossible dream.

Sly is in town promoting his role as a villain in “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.” I asked how much of a villain? He laughed, “I’m the one you want to live next door. I’m the kind who keeps learning his lesson, like Wile E. Coyote. I’m an evil genius who creates a kind of cyberspace game that steals the minds of children. We’re like we’re in a computer game. And the kids are just great; real pros! I loved working with them.”

I ASKED my longtime friend Sly to talk a bit about what it’s like to have created the iconic “Rocky,” and how he has adjusted to the ups and downs of fame. He said, “Well, I have a great family life, a wonderful wife [Jennifer Flavin] who gets smarter every day, and my three daughters, 2, 5 and 6. You know, the Quran says a man with three little girls goes directly to heaven when he dies, as he will already have endured in life enough worry and paranoia. But it has dawned on me that your life works from your roots. My family has saved my sanity.

“It took me a while to realize that ‘Rocky’ wasn’t just a performance. It had great meaning; the character became indelible. I don’t want to sound pretentious, but I did once rebel against the ‘Rocky’ idea. Now I know it’s normal to want to run the full spectrum, the rainbow of all your colors. ‘Rocky’ is a philosophy, so let’s make the sixth one, which I’ve already written. ‘Rocky’ still needs to be in the game, like my hero, George Foreman, who went from real-life ‘villain’ to fabled hero in only 50 years or so. He’ll be in the next ‘Rocky’ movie!

“I call this script ‘Puncher’s Chance,’ because it’s what every fighter has. A fighter may lose his abilities, but even old fighters retain their punch. It’s the last thing they lose. And if they use it right, they can get lucky. Foreman, you know, is going to fight again professionally. And look at a great athlete like Lance Armstrong. These guys just keep moving forward.”

MEANWHILE, Stallone is moving forward with another story he wrote, “Thug’z Life,” about the real-life deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., and the corruption in the L.A. Police Department. Sly will direct, produce and appear as Det. Russell Poole, who believed there was something rotten going on and was removed from the force as a result. “We are just waiting for the Errors & Omissions insurance; it’s a normal thing, to keep us from being sued,” Sly said. “I think this can be a great film. It will offer a conspiracy theory, present the evidence and let the audience draw its own conclusions.”

“YOU KNOW, sometimes, I think there’s not a lot I can do in this industry,” Sly continued. “I have begun fantasizing about getting into the anti-aging game with nutritionals. I have been talking to experts, and I’d like to do something like what Paul Newman did with his food line. A situation where you can do something useful for society and give something back. So I have been examining that.

“Stallone is a forceful guy, who also has high hopes that, eventually, he will make his movie on the life of Edgar Allan Poe. It is written, it is ready, and Sly continues to seek the actor to play it and the financing to make it. “It will win an Oscar for somebody!” he says with certainty.

At the end of our talk, I asked Sly how his controversial mom, Jackie, is doing? He smiled. “Everybody wants to keep on keeping on, to be famous, to do their thing. She does hers!” Well, she did one thing very well; she produced the phenomenon that is Sylvester Stallone. Sly knows the reality and says “Youth must be served … but the rest of us go on as well. We have our choices, our ambitions, and we have that last important thing – the ‘Puncher’s Chance!'”

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

– Craig Zablo

Rocky Bust Available

Craig / / 2003, Rocky

Harvey Abrams, President of the International Institute for Sport and Olympic History sent me the following press release

The IISOH has the statue of ROCKY, famous from the movie ROCKY III, listed on ebay for $5 million in its first major fundraising event.

What is not listed on ebay — yet — is another artwork — the ROCKY BUST, a full-size figure of the head of the famous statue listed for sale at only $22,000 (twenty-two thousand dollars).

The BUST can be seen at
http://www.harveyabramsbooks.com

The IISOH is a non-profit educational, literary and research corporation that is organized to operate a Library and Museum devoted to the History of Sport, Physical Education, Recreation, Dance, Sport in Art and the Olympic Games.

The group is planning to construct a large campus facility in central Pennsylvania with a Library, Museum and Theatre surrounded by vast outdoor sculpture gardens, sports facilities and a restaurant/cafe.

– Craig Zablo