25 Things You Didnt Know About Rocky Movies

Sylvester Stallone in 'Rocky' (Everett)

Past Adam Thousand. Raymond

Sylvester Stallone has been conscientious to note that Creed "is not Rocky 7." And that's a huge relief. Subsequently vi Rocky movies, at that place was little left to say about the Philly social club fighter turned globe champ. Creed, instead, turns the focus to Adonis Johnson Creed, played by Michael B. Jordan. The son of Apollo Creed is a struggling fighter who enlists his father'due south old rival to help him in the band.

To get you set up for the new drama that hits theaters on Thanksgiving Mean solar day, here are 72 knockout facts — the same as the number of steps in front end of the Philadelphia Museum of Art — about the first six installments of the Rocky series. They're culled from Blu-ray extras, commentary tracks and numerous media reports from the past 39 years. At present, as Mickey would say, "Don't be a bum, and read that trivia!"

Scout the 'Creed' cast depict their perfect Philly cheesesteak:

Rocky (1976)

1. Stallone was inspired to write Rocky later on watching Chuck Wepner'southward 1975 championship fight with Muhammad Ali, in which the journeyman heavyweight knocked down the champ for only the third time in Ali's career. Wepner later sued Stallone for cashing in on his life story and they settled out of court.

2. Stallone'due south first version of Rocky was much darker than the final draft. Rocky was an anti-hero, Mickey was a racist, and Rocky ended upwards throwing the last fight and then he wouldn't have to exist a part of the vile world of battle. Stallone says around 10 percent of the original script remained in the final version.

3. Producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler met with Stallone as a favor to his agent, and although they didn't accept any parts for him, they told Stallone to pass along anything he wrote. Later on rejecting on the script that somewhen became the 1978 picture show Paradise Aisle, the producers read Rocky and immediately optioned information technology. United Artists was interested, but wanted to bandage a big-name actor even though the then picayune-known Stallone desperately wanted the office. Finally, the head of UA agreed to let Irwin and Chartoff cast Stallone later on watching The Lords of Flatbush and mistakenly thinking Perry King was who they were casting.

iv. Other than Burt Young (Paulie), none of the primary actors in Rocky were the outset choice. Producers wanted Lee Strasberg for Mickey, but he wanted too much money. Burgess Meredith, a professional actor since the 1930s, stepped in. Boxer Ken Norton was lined up to play Apollo, but he dropped out at the last infinitesimal to go along the ABC show Superstars. Carl Weathers auditioned shortly subsequently and got the role, fifty-fifty though he insulted Stallone's interim during his read through and lied nearly having boxing experience.

Stallone and Burgess Meredith in 'Rocky' (Everett)

5. Director John Avildsen and Stallone had to fight to shoot exteriors on location in Philadelphia. Producers wanted to shoot the entire in moving picture in L.A. to keep costs down, which was of particular interest to them because they were personally guaranteeing to cover any costs on the picture show over the studio's allotted budget of $ane million.

half dozen. Shooting in Philadelphia was washed on a shoestring. There was no honeywagon, no catering, and no trailers. All exterior shots were lit exclusively with natural light, and pizza was the only on-set meal — for breakfast, dejeuner and dinner.

vii. Amid Stallone'south family members involved in the production were his brother, Frank Jr., who played one of the street singers, his father, Frank Sr., who rang the bell in the climactic fight, and his dog, Butkus, who played Rocky's domestic dog. Backside the scenes, Stallone's then wife, Sasha, served as the production'southward yet lensman.

8. Several elevated trains can be seen rolling past the background in exterior shots. This was no accident, every bit a production assistant stood near the tracks with a walkie-talkie and would tell Avildsen when trains were coming and then he could shout "action."

9. Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown used his new device to film much of Rocky's running throughout Philadelphia. In fact, Rocky's iconic sew the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum was Dark-brown's idea. He filmed his wife running up those stairs equally a proof of concept for the Steadicam and when Avildsen saw that footage he decided to use it in Rocky.

ten. The Steadicam was too an essential part of shooting in the meat locker — assuasive Brownish to weave in and out of the beef sides — and the last fight between Rocky and Apollo. The device allowed Chocolate-brown to circle the fighters in the ring and shoot over the shoulder of the one getting punched. Fake punches wait a lot more realistic when you can't encounter the point of contact, Chocolate-brown says on the Blu-ray commentary.

Stallone and Carl Weathers in 'Rocky' (Everett)

11. Stallone and Meredith wore prosthetic pieces throughout the movie. To prove the cuts effectually Rocky'south eyes, Stallone wore small pieces over his eyebrows, while Meredith had a fake cauliflower ear and a tube stuck upwards his nostril fabricated his nose announced permanently disfigured.

12. Young was intent on making himself feel dirty and uncomfortable so he could channel Paulie's discontent. He dabbed sugariness vermouth, which he hates, on his neck and face. He wore layer upon layer of habiliment so it would be harder to move and dipped his hands in turpentine and then they would feel tight, mimicking arthritis.

xiii. Stallone encountered some opposition to his decision to have Rocky clothing a pork pie lid. He was told he couldn't wear information technology considering Gene Hackman had worn a similar hat in The French Connection. Stallone was steadfast; he said the hat completed Rocky's "suit of armor."

14. Instead of an ice rink, Rocky and Adrian'south first engagement was originally set up in a restaurant. Avildsen told Stallone to rewrite information technology so the characters would be moving around. Stallone revised it every bit an ice-skating scene that was supposed to include hundreds of extras. All the same, the budget didn't permit for extras, water ice skates, or stunt people. (Also, Stallone doesn't ice skate.) "I don't know why I wrote it," he says in the commentary. The scene was salvaged when Avildsen suggested Rocky and Adrian take to the water ice alone, and that Rocky jog along while she skated.

15. Stallone was able to hands down raw eggs before the preparation montage because information technology was something he'd done while living in a tiny New York apartment that didn't accept a stove.

xvi. The training montage began as a piece of music, around which Avildsen built the scene with footage shot largely with Dark-brown's Steadicam. It began as a 90-2d piece and because in that location was more footage than music, composer Bill Conti kept having to add to the score. In the terminate, the montage was nearly iii minutes long.

17. Among the real-life boxing figures in the movie are Jimmy Gambina — a trainer and the film's technical advisor — who plays Mickey's No. 2, Mike. Rocky's cut human being, Al Salvani, was a battle trainer named Al Silvani. And of grade, Joe Frazier appears in the ring earlier the terminal fight. Avildsen tried to get as many real-life champs as he could, but Smokin' Joe was the but one to show.

Spotter the original trailer:

xviii. Originally, the climatic fight wasn't choreographed, but when Stallone and Weathers got together for their kickoff rehearsal, confusion reigned. Avildsen asked Stallone to map out each punch of the fight, and the next twenty-four hour period he had more than a dozen pages of lefts and rights written out. The actors rehearsed that, like a dance, for weeks, referring at times to 8mm footage of their rehearsals to run into what needed to alter.

xix. Avildsen fought to get the producers to spring for the giant posters of Rocky and Apollo hanging in the arena during the fight. The mistake with Rocky'southward shorts (they were crimson with a white stripe in the poster, simply Rocky was planning to wear white shorts with a red stripe) was unintentional. Ultimately, Avildsen was happy well-nigh the mistake because information technology allowed for an exchange between Rocky and promoter Miles Jergens in which Jergens says the fault "doesn't really matter, does it?" Once again, the audience was reminded just how trivial anybody thought of Rocky.

20. At that place weren't most plenty extras during the concluding fight to fill the 8,000-seat arena, which is why it'south so night during the fight. The shots that testify a full stadium are stock shots of Madison Square Garden.

21. In the original ending, Apollo is carried out of the ring in celebration and Rocky and Adrian retreat to the bowels of the stadium. The shot of them belongings hands and walking into the darkness is featured on the movie'south affiche.

Stallone and Weathers in 'Rocky II' (Everett)

Rocky Ii (1979)

22. While on the publicity tour for Rocky, Stallone told the New York Times his plans for a trilogy that never happened. In the sequel, the paper said, "Rocky would get to dark school and enter politics and eventually go mayor of Philadelphia. And in Part III, he would be framed by the political machine because he was too honest, impeached and wind up back in the ring at 37, broken downwards merely happy."

23. Stallone's own discomfort in forepart of the camera afterwards the success of Rocky inspired him to write the scene of Rocky fumbling through a commercial shoot.
24. Carl Weathers says in this making-of featurette that he never worked as hard equally a professional football game player as he worked to prepare himself physically for the fight in Rocky II. "The physical training for this film was the hardest thing I've e'er done in my life."

25. Chuck Wepner, the real fighter who inspired Stallone to write Rocky, read for the part of a sparring partner named Chink Weber. Wepner did so poorly that he didn't get the part and the character was cut from the movie.
26. Former lightweight champion Roberto Durán has a cameo in the movie every bit 1 of Rocky'southward sparring partners.

27. While training for the moving-picture show, Stallone tore his right pec and had to get 160 stitches under his correct arm.

Talia Shire and Stallone in 'Rocky Ii' (Everett)

28. A writer for Philadelphia magazine calculated that Rocky's run in the motion-picture show's montage would have been thirty miles long as he bounced around the city in a seemingly illogical way. That have been a ridiculously long run for Rocky, much less the 800 school children who followed him through the streets during the montage.

29. The film reveals that Adrian'southward last name is Pennino, the aforementioned as Talia Shire's mother.

30. After filming, Stallone said he was "real messed-up inside." Weathers pummeled him, he said, with 8 times as many punches equally he did in the original. "Information technology was the most grueling thing I've ever been through," he told flick critic Roger Ebert.

Mr. T, Weathers, and Stallone in 'Rocky III' (Everett)

Rocky III (1982)

31. In 1979, Stallone too told Ebert that the completion of the Rocky trilogy, which is how he imagined it then, would take the boxer traveling to Rome to fight in the Roman Colosseum. "I'one thousand seriously gonna try to work in an audition with the pope into the film," he said. A year after, he was notwithstanding wrestling with how Rocky Three would end, and told Ebert, "If I have the nerve, if I take real nervus, Rocky should dice at the end of the third film."

32. Producer Robert Chartoff says in a Blu-ray featurette that Clubber Lang was never supposed to have a mohawk or outrageous sideburns. Those were all from star Mr. T, a former bodyguard for Muhammad Ali and Carbohydrate Ray Leonard, among others.

33. Stallone got his torso-fat pct down to an astounding two.8 percent for the motion picture. He did this by giving his life over to working out and subsisting only on 10 egg whites, a piece of toast and a piece of fruit each twenty-four hour period.

34. Stallone wanted to use Queen'due south "Another One Bites the Grit" for the training montage, but couldn't get the rights. So he asked the band Survivor to write a vocal for the flick, and they came up with "Eye of the Tiger," which went on to win a Grammy. Joe Esposito'southward song "You're the All-time," was also written for the movie, merely Stallone rejected information technology, leaving it available for The Karate Kid.

Watch Stallone recast his most famous roles:

35. Famed painter LeRoy Neiman, whose most famous work is a portrait of Rocky, began a series of cameos as a ring announcer with Rocky III. He'd go along to appear in the side by side 2 movies in the series.

36. Stallone deputed a bronze statue of Rocky before product of the film began and donated it to the city after filming was complete. In 2006, when plans were made to motility it from the Philadelphia's Spectrum to the art museum, opposition arose from some who argued that it wasn't fine art, but rather a "movie prop" that didn't belong at the museum. Eventually it was placed at the lesser of the at present famous Rocky Stairs.

37. Johnny Carson was so impressed by Blob Hogan's performance every bit Thunderlips that he booked the so unknown wrestler on The Tonight Evidence. Information technology's a skillful thing, as well, because Vince McMahon fired the young wrestler from the WWF for appearing in the movie when he was supposed to exist wrestling.

38. The montage at the beginning of the film includes footage of Stallone on a 1978 episode of The Muppet Evidence. Jim Henson helpfully recorded a new intro with Kermit announcing the guest every bit Rocky Balboa and then it could be used in the picture show.

39. The climatic fight between Rocky and Clubber Lang is the only 1 in the series that doesn't go a full fifteen rounds. It's over in iii.

40. Stallone'due south brother, Frank, continues his cameo streak in Rocky III, this fourth dimension playing one of the mopes Rocky beats downwards in the movie's opening montage.

Stallone and Dolph Lundgren in 'Rocky Iv' (Everett)

Rocky IV (1985)

41. In a 1979 interview with Roger Ebert, Stallone said, "There'll never be a Rocky IV. You gotta telephone call a halt." But in 1982, while doing printing for Rocky Iii, he admitted that a 4th moving picture wasn't out of the question. "The simply manner I would make information technology is if Rocky has to pace outside himself and enter the international community," he said. Stallone would afterward say that the fight with Ivan Drago was, at least in function, based on a fight between Joe Louis and German heavyweight turned Nazi puppet, Max Schmeling.

Lookout man the trailer:

42. When he auditioned for the part of Ivan Drago, Dolph Lundgren was a male model with a degree in chemical engineering. At the initial cattle call, he was dismissed for being too tall. Undeterred, Lundgren sent photos of himself in boxing gear to Stallone, which eventually led to a meeting with the star.

43. Lundgren had to proceeds well-nigh 20 pounds for the office, then he followed a training regimen that required bodybuilding half-dozen days a week.

44. Stallone worked with champion bodybuilder Franco Columbo to achieve a more muscular await than he had in the previous movie. Ultimately, he added 10 pounds and several inches to his arms and breast.

45. Chartoff saw Drago as the "indomitable enemy," representing everything nosotros fear nearly the Soviet Matrimony. "If there had ever been conflict, this is what nosotros would have had to face up," he says. Lundgren, meanwhile, said he felt sympathy for Drago, who was a pawn in the machinations of an evil empire.

46. In a bid for actuality, Stallone asked Lundgren to really try to knock him out on their offset try at shooting the fight scene. Subsequently Lundgren caught Stallone in the breast with a particularly ferocious shot, Stallone called it off. Subsequently that night, he was forced to become to the hospital and remained in intensive care for five days. "He hit my eye so hard that information technology banged against my ribs and started to swell, and that usually happens in machine accidents," he later said.

47. Lundgren also roughed up Carl Weathers during their fight, at one point picking him upwards and throwing him into the corner. As Stallone remembers it years later, Weathers jumped out of the ring and threatened to quit because of the Swede.

48. Paulie'due south robot was built by a company chosen International Robotics to assist work with autistic children. Stallone's son is autistic, and later inviting the robot into his home, Stallone wrote it into his picture show. The robot's voice, both male and female person versions, is provided by International Robotics founder Robert Doornick.

49. When Rocky goes to the frozen Russian tundra to set for his fight against Drago, he'southward actually in Wyoming. The final fight, set up in a large Russian metropolis, was filmed at the Agrodome Arena in Vancouver.

Stallone and Tommy Morrison in 'Rocky V' (Everett)

Rocky Five (1990)

fifty. Later on four blockbuster Rocky films, Stallone returned with a fifth that showed a distressing, desperate Rocky who didn't have the triumphant moments fans were used to. This, Stallone said in a 2010 interview, is why the movie flopped. "It was a mistake because the audition didn't want to see the downside of the grapheme. They wanted him to remain on superlative," he told the Sun.

51. Existent-life fighter Tommy Morrison (who played Tommy Gunn) can thank Frank Stallone Jr. for his star turn in the fifth installment of Rocky. Frank saw Morrison fighting on TV 1 nighttime and, knowing a villain was needed for Rocky Five, told his brother to look into the young heavyweight.

52. Stallone's existent-life son Sage plays Rocky'southward son in the pic. The raw emotion he showed in the flick was easy to muster given the similarities between the motion-picture show and his life. "When I was screaming: 'You never spent fourth dimension with me! You never spent fourth dimension with my mother!' that was true. I was looking into my begetter's confront and actually saying that," he told People. (Sage passed away in 2012.)

53. Chartoff and Winkler returned once again to produce Rocky V, xiv years after the original. In that time, Winkler observed quite a change in his star. The difference between Sly in Rocky, as a starving player, and Sly in Rocky V, when he "was like the Prince of Principality of liechtenstein," was just enormous, he recalls on the Blu-ray commentary. For the original, Stallone was "there every minute and very attentive and information technology showed" he added.

54. Throughout much of shooting, the plan was to kill off Rocky in the climactic street fight at the end of the motion-picture show. Stallone reportedly cried when he wrote the scene, but ultimately decided to change it. Some reports say producers forced the change and others say it was Stallone who decided that dying in a street fight wouldn't be a plumbing equipment cease for Rocky.

55. Like Morrison, Michael Anthony Williams (who played Union Pikestaff) was a real boxer. There were rumors that Williams and Morrison were to have a real fight after filming wrapped on Rocky V, but the two boxers never met in anything simply the fictional friction match.

56. The fight between Gunn and Pikestaff was filmed in the Philadelphia Civic Center and called for 10,000 extras. Admission coupons were printed in the newspaper and given out by radio stations.

57. Jodi Letizia, who played the foul-mouthed young Marie in Rocky, was supposed to reprise her character in Rocky V and show that, as predicted, she ended up living a life on the streets. Her scenes were cut, though she does brand a brief appearance during the street fight. When the character returns in Rocky Balboa, she'south played by another actress.

58. The speech that Mickey gives Rocky in the flashback scene was taken, most verbatim, from a monologue delivered by legendary trainer Cus D'Amato about Mike Tyson.

59. Pro wrestling legend Terry Funk helped coordinate stunts for the motion-picture show. Funk had previously worked with Stallone on Paradise Aisle and Rambo III.

60. In a 2010 interview, Stallone admitted Rocky V "stank." He went on, "It was terrible. I couldn't let that exist the terminal discussion on that character. He could simply speak what was in his center. When I say information technology, yous won't believe it. But when Rocky says information technology, you know information technology'south the truth."

James Francis Kelly III, Stallone, Milo Ventimiglia, and Burt Young in 'Rocky Balboa' (Everett)

Rocky Balboa (2006)

61. Stallone was motivated to brand one more Rocky movie because of the disappointment that was Rocky 5. "I felt obligated to try and end the series the way it should have ended," he told EW. He first got the notion to add together a coda to the serial in 1996, but it took him another decade to notice a studio willing to make the moving picture.

62. Stallone considered calling the motion-picture show, Puncher's Run a risk. "I'm glad I didn't," he says on a Blu-ray commentary.

63. In the original script, Adrian was live simply "it but didn't have the same dramatic punch," Stallone told USA Today. "I idea, 'What if she's gone?' That would cut Rocky'due south center out and drop him downwards to ground zero."

64. Stallone wanted the boxer Roy Jones Jr. to play Mason "The Line" Dixon, just subsequently making 32 phone calls and not having a unmarried one returned, Stallone moved on. He ended upwards casting Antonio Tarver, a former light-heavyweight champion.

65. Among Stallone's inspirations for Rocky Balboa's storyline was George Foreman's 1994 fight with Michael Moorer, in which the 45-yr-old Foreman won past knockout and became the oldest-ever heavyweight champion. Another inspiration was the fictional fight between Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano in 1969.

Watch the 'Rocky Balboa' trailer:

66. The impassioned speech communication Rocky gives to the licensing board reflects Stallone's efforts getting this movie made, he says. Stallone felt that he, like Rocky, was considered a has-been in the optics of much of the public.

67. In an alternating ending, Rocky wins the fight in a carve up determination. He'south carried out of the band and showered in cheers.

68. The preparation montage was an intentional deviation from those of the past. Rather than working on quickness and stamina, Rocky emphasizes ability. And to do that, Stallone shot the scene in a powerlifting gym, which he only had admission to for a unmarried mean solar day. After 17 hours of shooting, "walking the next day was out of the question," he says.

69. The pre-fight press briefing was held on the gear up used for a real pre-fight press conference before a bout between Bernard Hopkins and Jermaine Taylor. Stallone says they but tried to indistinguishable what they saw.

lxx. The fight also took place in the aforementioned venue as the Hopkins fight and made use of the fans in attendance. Stallone wanted the fight to look like a real televised bout. HBO'due south branding and boxing announcers lend some authenticity, as does the switch to loftier-def cameras that brand the fight and its atomic number 82-upward wait less cinematic and more than like they're appearing on Boob tube.

71. The fight between Rocky and Dixon wasn't choreographed. Stallone wanted this fight to look as real as possible. Planning each punch, as he'd washed before, often led to unrealistic looking fights, Stallone said on Blu-ray commentary. So he and Tarver just got in the ring and started trading blows, "hoping to not go knocked out common cold." While both men avoided serious injury, they all the same took their lumps. Stallone broke a os in his foot, and Tarver broke a bone in his hand.

72. For the first fourth dimension in the series, the sound furnishings for punches are bodily punches. Stallone says in the previous films, audio editors used recordings of things such as shotgun blasts, bottles breaking, bondage rattling, and a baseball bat hitting wet leather to get the desired furnishings.

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