New Delhi: Sylvester Stallone said he has mixed feelings about the biopic I Play Rocky because he is ‘not dead yet’ and the ‘film has been made before its time’, wondering if the project is ‘jumping the gun a little bit’.
Anthony Ippolito plays a young version of Stallone in the film, a biographical drama directed by Peter Farrelly that chronicles the chaotic, inspiring real-life journey of the actor and the filmmaker who is fighting to write and star in the original 1976 boxing classic, Rocky.
“I’m not dead yet. Aren’t we jumping the gun a little bit? And then I saw this kid (Ippolito). I actually thought it was me the first moment. There were a couple of angles. I go to my daughter and say, ‘That’s unbelievable,’” he said.
The 80-year-old added that he has “nothing to do” with the film, but he has talked to Ippolito.
“I talked to the kid. I said, ‘If you want any questions, here I am,’ and that was it. But they did it all on their own,” he said, signalling that he wants to recut the fifth part of his Rocky series, released in 1990.
Claiming not to have his heart and soul for the sequel, Stallone added that he should not have been in the director’s chair for the fifth part as well.
I Play Rocky premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the People’s Choice Award. The film, reportedly made on a budget of nearly $26 million, is scheduled to begin a limited theatrical release by Amazon MGM Studios in the US on 6 November.
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‘A thorn in my side’
Rocky was made on a budget of nearly $1 million and went on to deliver a worldwide return of over 11,000 per cent, becoming the highest-grossing film released that year.
Stallone wrote the script in three days after watching the championship fight between legendary boxer Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner in Ohio. In the 15th round, Ali knocked out Wepner.
John G Avildsen directed the first part, while Stallone directed the next three sequels. Avildsen then returned to direct the fifth part, before Stallone directed the sixth.
In a separate interview, he said that he should have been more aware of not trying to be cool for the audience.
“It bothers me to death because I know I took my foot off the gas,” he said.
Stallone wrote the fifth part of the franchise, in which he brought his character, Rocky Balboa, back from retirement. Rocky had retired due to severe medical issues and went bankrupt because of Paulie’s poor business dealings. He then returns to the neighbourhood where he started everything in the first part and begins training a young fighter, Tommy Gunn, played by Tommy Morrison. Following Tommy’s betrayal, Rocky and Tommy become opponents in the film.
He called the film “a thorn in my side”.
The film did not perform at the box office compared to the previous part of the series, collecting nearly $120 million worldwide. In contrast, its predecessor, directed by Stallone, collected nearly $300 million worldwide.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)