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Sly is pictured on the cover of today’s USA Today ( July 12, 2004 ). Inside there is an article titled ‘ NBC steps into the ring with fall reality programs’ with another picture of Sly.
Here’s an except…” but Sylvester Stallone who will serve as the Donald Trump of The Contender, offered his own version of Trump‘s signature line: ” You’re unconscious.”
Thanks to Ernest “Jazzman” Resendes for the scan!
– Craig Zablo [July 12, 2004]
Jeffrey Katzenberg, Sylvester Stallone, Sugar Ray Leonard and Mark Burnett met with reporters about ‘The Contender’ as part of NBC’s 2004 Summer Press Tour in Los Angeles, California July 10, 2004.
Sly, his brother Frank and former boxing world champion Sugar Ray Leonard attended an open casting call for ‘The Contender,’ at the La Brea Gym in Los Angeles Tuesday, May 25, 2004.
– Craig
On May 17, 2004, Sly Stallone attended a casting call at the Trinity Boxing Club in New York to select fighters for ‘The Contender’. Sixteen boxers will compete in challenges and boxing matches over 16 episodes with the final winner claiming a million dollar prize. Frank Stallone and ‘Contender’ co-host, Sugar Ray Leonard were also in attendance.
It has been announced that Sylvester Stallone will be a major part of the reality series ‘The Contender,’ which will follow 16 boxers from their training camp through a series of physical challenges and boxing matches with the ultimate winner earning a million dollar prize.
Joining Stallone as co-host will be former world champion Sugar Ray Leonard and Producer Mark Burnett.
Stallone, Leonard and Burnett held a press conference at the Trinity Boxing gym in New York City on March 17,2004. Stallone displayed his skills on the speed at heavy bags to the delight of fans and reporters. Leonard also joined Sly in the ring for some friendly play-sparring. Frank Stallone, Sly’s brother, was also on hand.
– Craig
Stallone Files Suit Over ‘Rocky’ Projects
Fri May 14,10:59 PM ET
By GREG RISLING, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES – Actor Sylvester Stallone has sued Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and a production company, claiming they stymied his efforts to make a sequel and Broadway musical based on the “Rocky” film franchise.
The lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeks unspecified damages against the studio and the production company. It also seeks an order allowing Stallone to proceed with a “Rocky VI” film.
“He looks at litigation as the very of very last resorts,” said Stallone‘s attorney, Gerald Margolis. “It means he’s extremely sad, disappointed and put out by all of this.”
MGM spokeswoman Janet Janjigian called the lawsuit “sad, desperate, pathetic and without merit.” She declined further comment.
The lawsuit also names as a defendant the former firm of Chartoff-Winkler Productions. A call seeking comment from the company’s successor, Chartoff Productions, was not immediately returned.
Stallone alleges the defendants initially wanted to be involved in the development of a “Rocky” musical co-written by the actor. But MGM proposed keeping an unacceptable share of the potential profits. After Stallone balked, the studio allegedly said it would develop musicals based on the “Rocky” movies.
Stallone claims that he reached a tentative deal with MGM to make the “Rocky VI” movie, but the project was nixed after a producer allegedly demanded that his son direct the film.
Stallone also accused both defendants of pulling out of the musical and movie after learning he intended to co-produce and star in a boxing reality TV show called “The Contender.”
The series is scheduled to air in January, featuring amateur boxers as they advance from training camp through challenges in the ring. The winner will receive $1 million and a chance to become a professional prize fighter.
The suit claimed MGM retaliated by creating its own reality show called “The Real Rocky” with a similar plot. MGM, however, has said its show had been in the works for about a year.
– Craig
From the Associated Press Sat, Apr 24, 2004
ESSEN, Germany – Sylvester Stallone, the star of the five “Rocky” movies, says he’s hoping to draw people who don’t like boxing to his latest on-screen venture — a reality television show featuring young fighters.
Stallone, 57, is the executive producer of “The Contender,” slated to start next year, finding and grooming would-be boxers.
“All these 16 fighters must have a very good story and an interesting background,” Stallone said Saturday at a fitness fair in Germany. “You’ll get to know their wives and children, their mothers. It’s very emotional.”
“What I really want is for people, especially women, who don’t like boxing, to watch this show because it’s a drama,” he added.
The winner of the NBC series is to get $1 million and the chance to become a professional prize fighter. The boxers will fight one another in a weekly elimination process similar to other reality shows.
Stallone, in Essen to promote his nutritional products company, Instone, said he likely would no longer be tempted by a major movie role that would take him away from his family for months.
“I had my high point 30 years ago,” he said. “I had a very unusual career. It was too good — how do you top that?”
Former Heavyweight Champion George Foreman has signed to appear on NBC’s reality show The Contender alongside Sly Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard.
From Liz Smith’s March 19, 2004 Newsday.com column:
Sly’s definitely a ‘Contender’
JEALOUSY, ENVY, hurt pride, hurt feelings – sounds like the recipe for a soap opera or a love affair, doesn’t it? But, no, it’s big business. Big movie business.
For years, Sylvester Stallone has been trying to talk his original “Rocky” producer, Irwin Winkler, and the owners of the “Rocky” franchise, MGM, into another film about the indefatigable boxing hero. Sly sat down on more than one occasion and wrote an unpaid-for original screenplay for what would be the sixth round of the Philadelphia- based classic. The last one he titled “Puncher’s Chance,” giving himself a role in it as a boxing veteran.
So, some months ago, I ran into the gifted Winkler at the theater and, during the intermission, put my two cents in that the world will always be ready to welcome another “Rocky” movie, and why didn’t he get moving? (The original won the Oscar back in 1976; its theme music became a classic, and there have already been four sequels, all of them successful. The “Rocky” idea has earned at least $1.5 billion.)
While I didn’t give myself credit for actually pushing Winkler, it began to look as if he and MGM would finally move on the project. Little did I realize that behind the scenes, MGM’s head man Alex Yemenidjian, who had been saying the “Rocky” idea was passe, suddenly decided that MGM would distribute such a movie, only if the money was raised elsewhere to make it. This reluctance and lack of faith seemed a bit odd since “Rocky” is MGM’s second-largest asset after the James Bond movies.
In the meantime, Stallone, who has waited and waited while MGM and Winkler dragged their feet, was convinced by “Survivor” producer Mark Burnett and DreamWorks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg to star in their coming reality TV show about aspiring young boxers. “The Contender” could bow as early as November and will show us youngsters getting to live out their boxing dreams. Stallone will play a kind of Donald Trump figure; he’ll be the one to say “You’re down for the count” or “Count 10; you’re out!” Stallone will not only star, he’ll be executive producer, and he owns this show with Katzenberg and Burnett for NBC.
Since “The Contender” announcement, MGM and Winkler have both been galvanized and have exploded in fury at their old friend Stallone. Yemenidjian is quoted as saying that, as a result of the planned television series, “Now we, MGM, will do the real Rocky!” Stallone, who created his fame and movie career when he wrote and starred in the original against all odds, is reported saying, with some justification in my view – “They are looking for the real Rocky; he’ll be on NBC in ‘The Contender.'”
Thinking on all of this and the unfortunate circumstance of the severing of the Stallone-Winkler friendship, a thought occurs to me. If “The Contender” is a big hit, as everyone expects since it sold for one of the highest prices ever in tube history, doesn’t this make another “Rocky” feature a hotter idea than ever? Just asking! Of course, I can’t imagine a “Rocky” sequel without Stallone in some guise or other. So everybody ought to kiss and make up.
Sly Stallone, Sugar Ray Leonard and Mark Burnett and Sylvester Stallone attended a news conference Saturday, March 13, 2004, in Las Vegas to promote The Contender.