<\/p>\n
In 1976, Rocky was the top movie of the year. Starring Sylvester Stallone<\/a>, Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Carl Weathers<\/strong>, andTalia Shire<\/a><\/strong>, the film about scrappy Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa<\/a> (Stallone) raked in a box office total of $225 million globally, and became the highest-grossing film<\/a> of 1976, per The Numbers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rocky, which won Academy Awards<\/a> for Best Picture, Best Editing, and Best Director, was made on a small $1 million budget\u2014and it made newcomer Stallone a star.<\/p>\n One of the most famous scenes<\/a> in Rocky is a training montage in which the beloved boxer runs through the streets of Philadelphia in preparation for his upcoming boxing match with Apollo Creed (Weathers). The famous scene culminates with Balboa bounding up the 72 steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art as the movie\u2019s theme song, Bill Conti\u2019s \u201cGonna Fly Now,\u201d plays.<\/p>\n But the scene wasn\u2019t originally planned as it was shown. During a 2025 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon<\/a>, Stallone, 79, admitted he hadn\u2019t even thought about shooting a scene at the Philly landmark and didn\u2019t have a location permit.<\/p>\n “When I got to Philadelphia and did the movie Rocky, I wasn’t even thinking about the steps. We didn’t have any money to shoot there. We didn’t have the license,” he told host Jimmy Fallon<\/a><\/strong>. “I just got out of the car, I said, ‘Let me just run up the steps, get a shot of it, and we’ll get out of here before the police come.’ “<\/p>\n Stallone noted that his real-life dog, Butkus, who appeared in the film, was almost in the scene. \u201cThe first take, I said, ‘Let me carry my dog up the steps,\u2019\u201d Stallone recalled. \u201cMy dog is a buffalo; it’s a 130 lb. bull mastiff. I get halfway up, my knees buckle. We’re like, ‘Dog, out. Back in the car, pal.'”<\/p>\n “Anyway, we did it, and it became a very famous scene,\u201d the actor added.<\/p>\n Stallone talked about the significance of the art museum steps scene in a 2021 interview posted by The Philadelphia Inquirer on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cEver since I was 10 years old, I\u2019ve always been fascinated with steps,\u201d the actor admitted. \u201cI felt like you could see the whole world from up there, which basically you’re seeing your own future. It’s like look, this is what I have to survive and surpass to make a life. The symbolism on those steps \u2026it’s like unbelievable; it’s like it’s almost a pathway to your life. So that has always been an incredibly monumental image in my eyes. Plus it’s so filled with challenges and symbolism, so people come, they’re not running the Rocky steps, they’re running like the steps of their life. Like, this is. If he can do it, I can do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Fifty years after the first Rocky film\u2014there would be five sequels and three Creed spinoffs\u2014the art museum steps remain a major tourist attraction in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n Per the Visit Philly website<\/a>, thousands of fans annually recreate the famous scene as they make the trek up the 72 \u201cRocky Steps\u201d steps leading to the art museum entrance. Stallone also donated a bronze Rocky statue, which was created in 1980 by artist A. Thomas Schomberg for a scene in Rocky III, to the City of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Feb 22, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aol.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1976, Rocky was the top movie of the year. Starring Sylvester Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, andTalia Shire, the film about scrappy Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa (Stallone) raked in a box office total of $225 million globally, and became the highest-grossing film of 1976, per The Numbers. Rocky, which won Academy Awards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2297457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[445247,361572,359395,305643,356711,342841,445246,23943],"class_list":["post-2297455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-apollo-creed","tag-burgess-meredith","tag-carl-weathers","tag-philadelphia","tag-rocky","tag-rocky-balboa","tag-rocky-steps","tag-sylvester-stallone"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Rockys-Most-Famous-Scene-Was-Totally-Unscripted\u2014And-Filmed-Without-a.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2297455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2297458,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297455\/revisions\/2297458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2297457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2297455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2297455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2297455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sylvester Stallone was always ‘fascinated’ by steps<\/h2>\n