When the bid topped $300,000, Stallone said, “I would sooner burn the thing than have anyone else play Rocky Balboa. Stallone refused to sell unless Winkler allowed him to star – a longshot gamble that worked, and helped establish the million-to-one ethos that infused the entire production.
They kept insisting they needed a big name star, but the story was about not selling out, about having faith in yourself, about going the distance as a million-to-one shot.” The actors in consideration for the role were huge box-office draws: Burt Reynolds, James Caan, and Ryan O’Neal. “I got a monumental headache,” Stallone recalls. “I wrote it for me and I have to do it.”Īccording the now familiar story, the price went up to $125,000. “I can’t sell it outright,” the almost penniless writer-actor explained. They instantly sensed the magic in Stallone’s work, asked for a few rewrites and the negotiating began with a reported $75,000 offer. Going on a three-and-a-half day writing marathon, he produced a screenplay that ultimately reached the active and experienced producing team of Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, knowledgeable filmmakers who, at the time, had already brought more than 25 films to the screen. To all this, I injected doses of my own personal life, of my frustration at not getting anywhere.” Like so many of us, he is out of sync with the times. I have always seen him as a 20th Century gladiator in a pair of sneakers. And he has a good nature, although nature has not been particularly good to him. But he has deep emotion and spirituality and good patriotism.
People looked on him as the all-American tragedy, a man without much mentality and few social graces. “That night,” Sly continues, “Rocky Balboa was born. We had witnessed an incredible triumph of the human spirit and we loved it.” ROCKY BALBOA IS BORN Wepner went 15 rounds and established himself as one of the few ever to go the distance with the great Ali. But as the fight progressed, this miracle unfolded. It wasn’t at all regarded as a serious battle. Wepner, a battling, bruising club fighter who had never made the big time, was having his shot. To cheer myself up, I took the last of my entertainment money and went to see the Muhammad Ali – Chuck Wepner fight on closed circuit TV. “But I had so many ideas in my head I couldn’t focus on any one.
0 kommentar(er)
