Fans of sports dramas and diehard cinephiles must have seen Sylvester Stallone’s rags-to-riches underdog boxing movie ‘Rocky’, which came out in the year 1976. The cult movie went on to win the ‘Best Picture’ (Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler), ‘Best Director’ (John G. Avildsen), and ‘Best Editing’ Oscar awards and kickstarted Sylvester Stallone’s acting career in a big way. Stallone was also nominated in the ‘Best Actor’ category for his earnest performance but couldn’t win. The film’s phenomenal success resulted in five direct sequels followed by the ‘Creed’ spin-off sequel series.
In his recent Instagram posts, Sylvester Stallone vented out his annoyance with ‘Rocky’ series producer Irwin Winkler about not being given ownership rights for the highly lucrative ‘Rocky’ franchise. Stallone has stated that ‘After IRWIN controlling ROCKY for over 47 years, and now CREED, I really would like have at least a little WHAT’s LEFT of my RIGHTS back, before passing it on to ONLY YOUR CHILDREN – I believe That would be a FAIR gesture from this 93 year old gentleman?…”
For the sake of context, after Stallone wrote Rocky’s screenplay in just about three days, he approached several producers, who repeatedly rejected the script because Stallone himself wanted to play the lead role in the film. Finally, Winkler-Chartoff productions agreed for Stallone to star in the film written by him. Although Rocky went through a complex production rigmarole and the ups and downs, the film is still regarded as Sylvester Stallone’s brainchild and his vision.
Although Stallone had purportedly received a share of Rocky’s profits, the veteran actor has expressed his dissatisfaction over not having an equity stake in the ‘Rocky’ franchise. And his anger and frustration are clearly visible in the recent Instagram posts as well. Earlier, Rocky producer Winkler had earlier stated that Stallone had received a significant amount as profit share and upfront fees for the ‘Rocky’ series.
Apparently, what Stallone wants from the Rocky franchise, is an annuity of sorts which could be left to his children after he is no longer around. It remains to be seen whether or not the 91-year-old Rocky producer Irwin Winkler will respond to Sylvester Stallone’s latest statement and whether the ownership dispute for the ‘Rocky’ franchise will turn out to be in Stallone’s favour in the near future.
For the audience, the future of the ‘Rocky’ franchise looks bright with Michael B. Jordan’s ‘Creed III’ set for November 2022 release and Sylvester Stallone and Irwin Winkler are amongst the film’s producers. Besides that, Stallone is said to be working on another sequel featuring Rocky Balboa and a Rocky prequel series set in the 1960s is also in the works. In India, you can stream all the ‘Rocky’ films and the first ‘Creed’ movie on Apple (Pay Per View).