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I Play Rocky: A Sensational Biopic of the Making of Rocky’s Classic Debut
Confirmed
In Short: Peter Farrelly's biopic 'I Play Rocky' is a thrilling and inspiring look at the making of Sylvester Stallone's iconic film, according to Deadline.
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.
But the emotional knockout is delivered in the filming of a scene with Burgess Meredith (played by Robert Morgan) as Mickey who tells him he will agree to train him, after first rejecting him.
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.
Background
Peter John Farrelly is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and novelist. Along with his brother Bobby, the Farrelly brothers are mostly famous for directing and producing quirky comedy and romantic comedy films such as Dumb and Dumber; Shallow Hal; Me, Myself and Irene; There's Something About Mary; and the 2007 remake of The Heartbreak Kid.
The Toronto International Film Festival is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world.
What's confirmed
- 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.
- But the emotional knockout is delivered in the filming of a scene with Burgess Meredith (played by Robert Morgan) as Mickey who tells him he will agree to train him, after first rejecting him.
- 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.
What's still developing
- 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.
- On his way out the door he tucks a script he wrote called Paradise Alley (eventually a movie Stallone got made) under a pile that says “weekend reading”.
- 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 behind schedule, the saga of the actual filming begins and it has all been recreated with tender loving care, from the cinematography to production design, costume, music, editing, and one riotous scene after another that are not just about the making of this one film against all odds, 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.
- Another scene, the recreation of the iconic run up the Philly steps show us one of the first uses ever of the now indispensible Steadicam (using the original I am told) as it reinvented that aspect of moviemaking.
- It is no spoiler to say I am going to reveal the final moments of Peter Farrelly ‘s fantastic crowd pleasing biopic chronicling the making of the 1976 classic, Rocky, that 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 recreated for the movie.
- Yeoh, of course, started out in martial arts films, but that is not the kind of action displayed here.
- In his first movie since "Top Five," Rock confirms he's a major filmmaker.