I Play Rocky - The scoop and digest

Biographical drama about the development and production of Rocky is written by Peter Gamble and directed by Peter Farrelly.

Anthony Ippolito - Sylvester Stallone

AnnaSophia Robb - Sasha Czack

Matt Dillon - Frank Stallone Sr.

P. J. Byrne - Irwin Winkler

Toby Kebbell - Robert Chartoff

Stephan James - Carl Weathers

Tracy Letts - Sandy Maddox

Jay Duplass - John G. Avildsen

Kiki Seto - Talia Shire

Robert Morgan - Burgess Meredith

Scott Teller - Burt Young

Notable 'actors' missing include Tony Burton and Joe Spinell.

Summary

In 1973, struggling actor 'Mike' Stallone is on the bones of his ass and forced into sleeping rough, adopting a puppy he names Butkus (after football star Dick).

Mike resorts to softcore pornography and meets Sasha while working at a movie theatre, who encourages him to pen film scripts for roles specifically for him under his real name Sylvester.

Sly and Sasha marry and relocate to Los Angeles, where a friend introduces Sly to film producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler.

Before leaving, Sly secretly sneaks a script for Paradise Alley into their secretary's filing tray.  Although impressed, Chartoff and Winkler deem the script unsuitable, but encourage Sly to share any future efforts.

On 24 March 1975, Sly goes to a bar and watches Muhammad Ali defeat Chuck Wepner by TKO in the fifteenth round.  Moved by the underdog (Wepner) lasting way longer than anybody expected inspires him to bash out a screenplay for Rocky in just 3.5 days, which Chartoff and Winkler love.  However, they scoff at Sly demanding he play the title character, and want an established Hollywood star like Burt Reynolds, Ryan O'Neal or Paul Newman.

Ironically, O'Neal went on to star as fictional boxer Eddie "Kid Natural" Scanlon in The Main Event (1979), released a week after Rocky II.

After numerous offers to buy Sly off fail (peaking at $360,000), Chartoff and Winkler persuade fictional United Artists executive Sandy Maddox to make a low-budget production and grant Sly his wish, on the condition that he'll be replaced if project falls behind schedule.

On 9 January 1976, the shoot begins.

Great art never came through compromise

Was slice of pastiche necessary? Probably not.

Anyway, from mannerisms to speech, leading man absolutely nails Stallone (who wasn't involved btw).

Geezer has form, as he played a young Al Pacino in Michael Tolkin's 2022 TV series The Offer, which explored the making of The Godfather.

Despite being manipulative, it's sweet and surprisingly entertaining.

One thing I found weird though is that during the end credits, clips of the Apollo fight are shown out of order.