Days after images emerged from the set of Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky, Amazon MGM Studios has released the first image from the film.
The film features Anthony Ippolito as a young Sylvester Stallone in a film which follows the actor before he became a mega star.
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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 hit film Purple Hearts.
Here’s the pic’s blurb: 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. Turning down an offer of life-changing money, he instead works for pennies to get the movie made with himself in the starring role. The movie becomes the biggest box office hit of 1976, notching 10 Oscar nominations and winning Best Picture. The true story of the making of the iconic movie Rocky.
The image released today shows Ippolito in vintage Rocky Balboa gear — the gray cutoff sweats, the thermal top, the black Chuck Taylor high tops — running on the beach with a Butkus lookalike. It’s obviously not meant to channel the feel of the film’s Philadelphia set, but suggests Ippolito’s Stallone still in character on a break from a shoot.
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.
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