When my father first showed me Rocky, he told me the story of Sylvester Stallone’s dog, Butkus, who was featured in the film. Before selling the screenplay, Stallone was on the verge of homelessness and struggling to put food on the table. In an act of desperation, he sold his dog outside his local convenience store for a mere $40. After selling the rights to his screenplay and finally convincing the producers to let him play Rocky, Stallone returned to the store and bought his dog back for more than $1,000.
The making of Rocky was just as inspirational as the film itself. The production was an underdog story in its own right, with the film repeatedly underestimated and, at times, deliberately sabotaged. So how do you tell the story of the making of Rocky? By telling it in the most traditional biopic fashion possible with a whole lot of nostalgia.
Narratively speaking, Peter Farrelly’s (Green Book) I Play Rocky is a conventional and straightforward biopic about how Rocky came to be. We are first introduced to a young, 20-something Sylvester Stallone, played with remarkable precision by Anthony Ippolito (The Offer), in 1970s New York City. Stallone dreams of becoming an actor, but his lisp and partially paralyzed face make it difficult for him to land roles beyond softcore pornography. Struggling to make ends meet, he finds himself on the verge of homelessness, spending his nights either in a shelter or on the streets. After meeting his future wife, Sasha (AnnaSophia Robb, Soul Surfer), at a local movie theater, the two move to Los Angeles to pursue their dreams.
Despite landing a few roles here and there and submitting his scripts to producers, Sylvester continues to struggle to find his big break. That changes in 1975 when, after watching the heavyweight championship bout between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner, he is suddenly struck by a wave of inspiration. Within three days, he has written the first draft of Rocky, and by the end of the week, the script has been submitted to producers. What follows is a long battle between Sylvester, the producers, and studio executives over the script, and, more importantly, who would play Rocky. Eventually, the film was officially greenlit. From that point on, the rest is history.
While I Play Rocky is about as formulaic as filmmaking biopics get, the film is nevertheless incredibly entertaining. We already know the story of how Rocky was made, so none of the events depicted on screen are particularly shocking. But watching the producers lose their minds over Stallone refusing to give up the rights to his script unless he was allowed to play Rocky is hysterical. The scenes of the producers trying to convince the studio head to let Stallone play the role, only for the studio head to completely lose his mind, had me laughing so hard my sides were hurting.
And the most brilliant connection I Play Rocky makes is treating the making of Rocky as an underdog story, just like the film itself. At nearly every stage of production, Rocky seemed destined to fail. If Stallone got injured, if the production fell behind schedule, or if the film went over its already incredibly tight budget, the studio would cancel it. To make matters worse, the studio executives seemed to do everything in their power to sabotage the production. On the very first day of filming, Stallone was forced to run nearly 30 miles, causing him to partially tear a muscle in his calf. By framing the production of Rocky as its own underdog story, I Play Rocky creates a clever parallel between the struggles Stallone faced behind the scenes and the journey Rocky Balboa faces in the ring. It’s a simple idea, but it’s an incredibly effective one.
However, once the film shifts away from the tumultuous process of Stallone selling the rights to Rocky and the film’s pre-production and moves into the actual shooting of the movie, it devolves into one giant collage of scene recreations from the original film. While I Play Rocky does offer some unique insights into the production of Rocky, it increasingly relies on nostalgia from the original film. While the recreations themselves are incredibly accurate, so much so that it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish them from footage of the original film, it ultimately felt a little too reliant on memberberries from the original film for my taste.
Overall, I Play Rocky is a classic, crowd-pleasing biopic about one of the most influential and inspirational sports films ever made. While the film is undeniably too reliant on nostalgia and will probably become this year’s Oscar villain, there is no denying just how uplifting and entertaining it is. It may not reinvent the biopic formula, but honestly, it doesn’t need to. The story of how Rocky came together is already an incredible underdog story, and Peter Farrelly understands that sometimes the best way to tell a great story is to simply let the story speak for itself. By the time the credits rolled with the classic Rocky theme blasting, I found myself grinning from ear to ear, and, much like the original Rocky, that’s ultimately what matters.
My Rating: B
I Play Rocky comes to theatres November 6th.
I Play Rocky had its World Premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.
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