I Play Rocky Opens as Rocky Turns 50

Peter Farrelly's I Play Rocky opens in select theatres across the United States today and in British and Irish cinemas on the same day, with a nationwide expansion set for November 20. The biographical drama retraces how a then unknown Sylvester Stallone fought to write and star in Rocky, the boxing film that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Anthony Ippolito plays the young Stallone. AnnaSophia Robb plays his first wife, Sasha Czack, and Matt Dillon plays his father, Frank Stallone Sr. Stephan James plays Carl Weathers, who played Apollo Creed in the original film, while Jay Duplass plays John G. Avildsen, the director of Rocky. Toby Kebbell and P. J. Byrne play producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, and Tracy Letts plays a studio executive. Peter Gamble wrote the screenplay, and Amazon MGM Studios is distributing the film in the United States.

The story starts in New York in the mid-1970s, where Stallone was a struggling actor picking up low-paying work and failing auditions. After watching Muhammad Ali defend his heavyweight title against Chuck Wepner on March 24, 1975, he went home and wrote a first draft of Rocky in three and a half days. At the time he had one hundred and six dollars in his bank account and had sold his dog, Butkus, because he could not afford to feed him.

Chartoff and Winkler liked the script but wanted an established actor in the lead role. According to accounts of the negotiation, offers for the screenplay climbed to more than a third of a million dollars, with the condition that Stallone step aside. He refused every offer that did not let him play Rocky Balboa himself, and the producers eventually agreed to a low-budget production with Stallone in the part. He took thirty-five thousand dollars for the script and the role, then used part of the money to buy Butkus back.

The gamble behind the film

Rocky premiered in November 1976 and became the highest-grossing film of that year in the United States. It collected ten Academy Award nominations and won Best Picture, Best Director for Avildsen, and Best Film Editing. The film grossed 225 million dollars worldwide, turning a low-budget boxing picture into among the most durable franchises in American cinema.

Farrelly's film follows that gamble from the inside, showing Stallone sneaking a script into the producers' office, arguing his case in meetings, and holding his ground as the offers rose. The production moved from New York to Philadelphia to allow on-site filming, and Stallone worked through injuries and illness to keep the shoot on schedule. The picture runs 128 minutes.

The project was announced in May 2024, with Farrelly directing and Gamble writing. Ippolito was cast in August 2025, and filming began that October in New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Stallone was not involved in the production. Farrelly has said he sought Stallone's approval to make the film but advised against Stallone taking a producing role, because audiences might question whether he had shaped the story.

Reception and the anniversary screenings

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, where it finished as runner-up for the People's Choice Award. According to Rotten Tomatoes, 88 percent of 78 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.4 out of 10. Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote that the film understands how the underdog story of Rocky was echoed in Stallone's own fight to get it made, while Robert Daniels of ScreenDaily dismissed it as an uninvolving crowd-pleaser. Rotten Tomatoes collected the early reviews after the Toronto premiere, with critics singling out the lead performance as the film's strongest element.

Stallone and composer Bill Conti marked the anniversary at an evening event at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on November 5, joined by Ippolito and Farrelly. The original Rocky returns to cinemas in a re-release timed to the anniversary, so audiences can watch the 50-year-old film and the story of how it was made in the same season.

Further details on the release and the cast are set out in the film's reference pages, and reporting on the Brooklyn celebration is available from Haute Living. Full production and release information is listed on the film's Wikipedia page. Cinema has had a busy week: Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana epic opened to split reviews, while Pink Floyd announced a 2027 reissue of Animals with previously unheard tracks.