‘I Play Rocky’: Peter Farrelly Previews Amazon MGM Flick At CinemaCon

I Play Rocky from director Peter Farrelly from Amazon MGM Studios, featuring Anthony Ippolito as a young Sylvester Stallone in a film that follows the actor before he became a mega star.

Ippolito is best known for playing another iconic Italian Oscar winner from the ’70s, Al Pacino, in the Paramount+ limited series The Offer. He also appeared in the Netflix’s film Purple Hearts. 

The ensemble also includes AnnaSophia Robb, P.J. Byrne, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Erik Palladino, Rob Demery, Jay Duplass, Matt Dillon, Stephan James, Kiki Seto, Robert Morgan, Saul Stein and Trevor St. John.

A struggling actor with a partially paralyzed face and a speech impediment writes a script that a big movie studio wants to buy, but he refuses to sell it unless he gets to play the lead. “I don’t even know that that means,” says a would be producer. “You don’t have the looks and you talk like you have rocks in your mouth.”

“I put my heart and soul on the page,” says Rocky. Turning down an offer of life-changing money, he instead works for pennies to get the movie made with himself in the starring role. There are tons of stressful strings attached that constantly threaten to derail the project The movie, Rocky, becomes the biggest box office hit of 1976, notching 10 Oscar nominations and winning Best Picture. Yes, he runs up the steps of the Philadelphia art museum.

There’s often a wise teacher lurking in the past — in this case when the future actor was a young boy trying to fit it with a more popular name. “I wouldn’t call yourself Mike,” she said. “There are a lot of Mikes in the world. There is one one Sylvester. Sylvester Stallone.”

The Rocky franchise, distributed by United Artists and later MGM, is one of the most iconic and financially successful sports film franchises of all time, grossing more than $1.7 billion globally, including the Creed spinoffs. Created by and starring Stallone as underdog boxer Rocky Balboa, the franchise launched in 1976 with the original film winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Stallone was nominated for Best Actor and Original Screenplay. His performance and creative vision turned Rocky into a cultural touchstone and established him as a Hollywood legend.

Toby Emmerich, Christian Baha and Farrelly are producing the pic, scripted by Peter Gamble, with FilmNation Entertainment handling production services and international sales.