Rocky Balboa knows how to take a punch.
But Sylvester Stallone, 76, who created and portrayed the iconic boxer, seems too beat up to lose control of his “Rocky” legacy.
The actor has long been haunted by the fact that, as a young unknown in Hollywood, he signed a deal in which he relinquished ownership of the “Rocky” franchise, which he created. (Stallone wrote the film.)
Since at least 1976, the rights to Rocky have been in the hands of producer Irwin Winkler.
Now, with Friday’s release of “Creed III” — a spinoff of the “Rocky” franchise — things seem to have hit a new low.
While Stallone had cameos in the first two “Creed” films, he does not appear in this one. In fact, he said on SiriusXM’s “Pop Culture Spotlight with Jessica Shaw” last November, he “Never“Watch the third installment, even though he has a producer credit on the film.
Last July, Stallone posted a photo-op on Instagram of a vampiric Winkler sucking Rocky’s blood. It has been removed from the site but can be viewed here Deadline Hollywood.
In the caption, he wrote, “Many artists in every industry throughout history, recording, painting, writing, you name it, have been destroyed by these bloodsuckers, who have destroyed many families, their Pockets are linked to other people.[‘s] Work.”
That too Winkler described As in “considered the most hated, unremarkable, lousy producer in Hollywood.”
Representatives for Winkler, 91, did not respond to a request for comment.
It all began in the mid-1970s, when a friend of Stallone’s approached producing partner Bob Chartoff (now deceased) and Winkler—now a veteran filmmaker on such films as “The Irishman,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” , arranged a meeting with. and “the right stuff.”
Stallone, a struggling actor, told them about his idea for “Rocky.”
The producers asked him to write the script on specification. It was agreed that, if the film was made, Stallone would play Rocky.
As described in Winkler’s memoir, “A Life in the Movies,” Chartoff and Winkler had a production deal with United Artists.
It included a clause in which the studio would have to finance a film of the two’s choosing, as long as it came in at a budget of less than $1.5 million and they had not made a film in nine months.
“Rocky” became that movie.
“At the time Stallone was unknown, he had no leverage,” a Hollywood insider told The Post. “The producers had the balls to cast him in ‘Rocky.’ And that made him a star.”
In fact, it took more than balls. In 1983 Winkler explained The Hollywood Reporter that he and Chartoff “kept our houses as assets” to guarantee that the film would come in on time and on budget.
Winkler writes in his book that United Artists chairman Arthur Karim reluctantly agreed to cast Stallone and wanted to see the actor in action.
He watched “The Lords of Flatbush,” a 1974 film about 1950s street gangs in Brooklyn. Stallone was one of the four leads.
According to Winkler’s book, United Artists, which financed the film, offered to buy the “Rocky” script from Stallone for $250,000.
“I suspect,” Winkler wrote of the offer, “no intention of making the film, but just to get us out of their hair. To them, $250,000 seemed a lot cheaper than $1.5 million.”
Additionally, Winkler writes, Krim mistook Stallone for another actor in “Flatbush” and “was very amused … It wasn’t until he saw our finished film nine months later that he realized That he made a film with the wrong person.”
Accordingly Deadline HollywoodStallone received $75,000 for writing and acting in “Rocky.”
When the movie became a sleeper hit, he earned $2.5 million on the back-end
“When he wrote ‘Rocky’ and starred in ‘Rocky,’ he was a brand new actor,” a source told the Post. “Young actors don’t get ownership. Rarely do studios give ownership to anyone. Studios want to own it. When he did the first ‘Rocky’, I don’t think anyone had any doubts about what would happen.
“How [Winkler] Got the rights, I don’t know…” a frustrated Stallone said during an interview on SiriusXM. “… It was all supposed to be fair. no one [was supposed to have] There was nothing more. I don’t care about money. I want to leave it to my children. I wrote [‘Rocky’] …”
However, Stallone, who is called It is worth $400 millionadded that it was “never going to happen. I can’t forgive it.”
Winkler has six “Rocky” films and other films that begin with “Rocky,” including the “Creed” films.
Stallone, according to Rapp, “was never written into ‘Rocky’ ownership and subsequently failed to press for the rights…”
Winkler could bring movies based around different characters from the “Rocky” universe.
Adding insult to injury, another “Rocky” spinoff, “Drago” — named for Russian boxer Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren, who fought Stallone’s character in “Rocky IV” — is in pre-production.
Outraged by the news, Stallone took to Instagram in July 2022 pulled up “This 94-year-old producer and his moronic useless vulture children, Charles and David…” “To clean the bones of another wonderful character I’ve created without even telling me.”
The Post reached out to Lundgren, a reported friend of Stallone’s who appeared in “”.Doctrine II“But for comment, there is not in the new.
According to IMDB, Lundgren is “rumored” to play Drago in the sequel.
Stallone didn’t hold back, posting on Instagram in July: “I have nothing but respect for Dolph but I wish he would have told me what was going on behind my back. Keep your real friends close.”
Stallone played an aging version of Rocky in each of the first two “Creed” films, released in 2015 and 2018 (for the former, according to the parade, Stallone earned $10 million). But he is nowhere to be seen in the most recent entry in the canon.
“It was taken in a completely different direction than I would have taken it,” Stallone told The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m too sentimental. I like my heroes to be beaten, but I don’t want them to go into that dark space. I feel people have enough darkness. ”
However, he admitted that not being in the film “A regrettable decision“
Michael B. Jordan, who stars in and directs “Creed III,” doesn’t seem too upset about it, though.
“For whom I have followed the love creed that “Yes,” Jordan said Los Angeles Times. “Some of these people don’t even know who Rocky is. He has never even seen the movie ‘Rocky’. But they have seen ‘Creed’.
