It is no spoiler to say I am going to reveal the final moments of Peter Farrelly‘s fantastic crowd-pleasing biopic I Play Rocky, chronicling the making of the 1976 classic Rocky, which not only made Sylvester Stallone a major star but also became one of the greatest behind-the-scenes stories in Hollywood history. Stay all the way through the very last of the credits and you will be rewarded with the only scene in this saga not re-created for the movie.
Introducing Stallone for the first time on The Tonight Show to promote Rocky, Johnny Carson tells a bit of the incredible backstory of Stallone turning down hundreds of thousands of dollars for his screenplay in order to insist he star in the movie he wrote for himself (even though he was completely unknown at the time). “If someone were to actually make a movie about the making of Rocky nobody would believe it,” Carson prophetically said.
Well, someone has done that, and the film that has resulted is a winner in every way, a movie that in fact manages to carry the same emotional wallop as the original Rocky and containing a performance from Anthony Ippolito that is so uncanny I didn’t for a minute think he was anyone but the actual Stallone. It feels like they just used de-aging technology so Stallone could play himself a half-century younger. But make no mistake, Ippolito’s powerful, moving and inspiring portrayal is not mere imitation. This guy inhabits Stallone in every way, delivering an authentic portrait that will blow you away.
Farrelly has said he would not have made the film without Stallone’s blessing, which he got, and he has, with Peter Gamble’s beautifully structured and crafted screenplay, made one of the best movies ever made about Hollywood moviemaking and the sheer mechanics of getting anything made. Certainly it is one of the most entertaining.
In a year that marks the 50th anniversary of Rocky, a film that spawned five sequels and three more films in the Creed spinoff series with Michael B. Jordan, I Play Rocky brings us full circle right back to the beginning and manages to slyly recapture the fresh spirit that birthed it. This film has turned the making of Rocky into its own Rocky-like moment of triumph.
Starting with Ippolito on screen as “Mike Stallone” auditioning for a nameless role, one of those aspiring actors working any menial job he can to support his dreams of making it in the industry, Gamble’s script shows us in linear fashion exactly how this impossible dream happened. From scraping the bottom of the barrel, even doing soft porn (a hilarious audition scene that really happened), finding a puppy he names Butkus, meeting his eventual wife Sasha (a perfect AnnaSophia Robb) at the movie theater where he works, and finally getting a break to meet big-time producers Irwin Winkler (PJ Byrne) and Robert Chartoff (Toby Kebbell) who sadly inform him Jan Michael Vincent got the job so the role of his brother has to go to someone else, all the ups and downs of the life of an actor trying to just get by and keep going are here.
On his way out the door of their office he tucks a script he wrote called Paradise Alley (eventually a movie Stallone got made) under a pile that says “weekend reading.” Their assistant knew the ruse but read the script and praised it, which caught the producers’ attention. They tell him he has real talent as a writer and to come up with some ideas. Sitting at a bar wondering how he was going to get by he sees a Muhammed Ali fight and bingo, the idea for Rocky comes pouring out of him, written in longhand in only three and a half days and handed to Sasha to type. Chartoff/Winkler (Byrne and Kebbell are really wonderful in these parts) sparks to it and manage to sell to a skeptical studio head, Sandy Maddux (a terrific and scene-stealing Tracy Letts in a composite of studio execs at the time). “Boxing pictures? Nobody makes boxing pictures,” he barks. The only hang-up is Stallone won’t sell it to them unless he stars in it.
In a series of scenes where the price keeps going up with seemingly no ceiling, Sly holds his ground. “I won’t sell it for $1 million. Not $10 million,” he swears, and you can see the passion of a man who believes in himself, willing to “go the distance” just like Rocky to prove it. Finally, after knocking the budget down to just $1 million with clauses designed to get Stallone fired so they can get Ryan O’Neal or an actor on that level when it inevitably falls behind schedule, the saga of the actual filming begins and it has all been re-created with tender loving care, from the cinematography to production design, costume, music, editing and one riotous scene after another. It is not just about the making of this one film against all odds, but rather it is really about the making of just about every film, a love letter to movies that in its own way is on par with Truffaut’s Day For Night.
A scene in Philadelphia at the meat-packing plant where they find the local union head has gotten wind they are shooting without permits turns into an amusing nail-biting moment where all the equipment and cast and crew has to be immediately hidden before he gets there. Another scene, the re-creation of the iconic run up the Philly steps, show us one of the first uses ever of the now indispensable Steadicam (using the original, I am told) as it reinvented that aspect of moviemaking.
But the emotional knockout is delivered in the filming of a scene with Burgess Meredith (played by Robert Morgan) as Mickey, who tells Rockey he will agree to train him, after first rejecting him. The key scene just wasn’t working, and director John Avildsen (a great Jay Duplass) tells him they have to do it again, but how? It needs a stronger emotional hook or it fails. Stallone then proceeded to completely make up a five-minute take on the spot that is masterfully delivered. Ippolito brought me to tears watching him play it, quite tricky since this improv is now scripted but has to feel spontaneous. The entire cast with Ippolito is ideal, with special shoutouts to Keki Seto as Talia Shire and Stephan James as Carl Weathers, both taking on Stallone’s iconic Rocky co-stars in style.
There are so many highlights in a movie that pulls off a tall task in bringing the same feeling we got the first time we saw Rocky. Farrelly, who won and deserved a couple of Oscars including Best Picture for Green Book, a film that tugs at the heartstrings without ever being anything less than simply human, has now made another film that makes us feel good about life and ourselves. Like Frank Capra used to do, he has made a movie that gives us hope. It couldn’t come at a better time.
Producers are Toby Emmerich, Christian Baha, Farrelly, Paul Currie and Michele Weiss.
Title: I Play Rocky
Festival: Toronto (Special Presentations)
Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios
Release date: November 6, 2026
Director: Peter Farrelly
Screenwriter: Peter Gamble
Cast: Anthony Ippolito, AnnaSophia Robb, Toby Kebbell, P.J. Byrne, Jay Duplass, Matt Dillon, Stephan James, Tracy Letts, Kiki Seto
Running time: 2 hr 8 mins
