"This movie is about having to believe in yourself... It's about going the distance. I put my heart & soul on the page. If I'm not willing to live up to what I wrote, then what's the point."
Amazon MGM Studios has shared the first trailer for I Play Rocky, which stars Anthony Ippolito (Grand Army) as a young Sylvester Stallone.
Based on the true story of Stallone's struggles to get Rocky made while refusing to allow anyone else to play the lead role of small-time boxer with big dreams, Rocky Balboa, Peter Farrelly's biographical drama also stars Stephan James as Carl Weathers, along with AnnaSophia Robb, Matt Dillon, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Jay Duplass and Robert Morgan.
This isn't Ippolito's first time playing an acting icon, as he previously starred as Al Pacino in the Paramount+ limited series The Offer, which recounted the making of The Godfather.
Surprisingly enough, Stallone has claimed that he wasn't involved with the movie on any level, and was "blindsided" and "shocked to read [about] it."
This was disputed by Farrelly in a recent interview with The Playlist.
"I’ve read this a couple of times, and that’s not accurate. I don’t know what that’s about, but the first thing we did was reach out [to Sly]. First of all, that was another script that a guy named Peter Gamble wrote. And it came to me, and I was like, 'incredible script!.' So they said, 'Do you wanna make it?' I said, 'If Sly’s okay with it.' And so they sent it to Stallone. He read it. And then I met with him at the Beverly Hills Hotel in LA. I said, 'Hey, what do you think? I’m not gonna make it if you don’t give me the thumbs up.' And he goes, 'Great. Do it.' So we did it. But I guess along the way, he must have forgotten.
The only misunderstanding I can imagine is that he was working on his memoirs. And I guess he was working on it while we were making the movie. And once we were done, I heard that. And by the way, he’s gonna be very, very happy because it’s a great story and he comes across fantastically."
Check out the trailer below, and let us know what you think.
"The film is an electrifying true story about an unknown actor with an unshakable belief that he wasn’t just meant to write Rocky—he was meant to be Rocky Balboa. Told “no” at every turn, Sylvester Stallone bets everything on himself, holding the line on playing the lead against seemingly impossible odds. The result is the ultimate underdog story behind the ultimate underdog movie."