Green Book director Peter Farrelly will direct a movie inspired by how Sylvester Stallone made the iconic 1976 boxing film Rocky, IndieWire reported.
The movie I Play Rocky's logline states that it “follows a struggling actor with a partially paralyzed face and a speech impediment who writes a script that a big movie studio wants to buy, but he refuses to sell it unless he gets to play the lead. Turning down an offer of life-changing money, he instead works for pennies to get the movie made with himself in the starring role.”
Rocky meets faux Rocky
I Play Rocky would then mirror the 1976 movie's fate: The movie Rocky became be the biggest box office hit of the year, earning $117.25 million worldwide. Today, that translates to $643.6 million today. It was also nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won one for best picture.
Casting the role of who would play Stallone — or rather the person inspired by Sly — is currently underway. The film will then be presented at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival market for buyers domestically by CAA and internationally by FilmNation Entertainment.
Farrelly will direct the movie from Peter Gamble's script. The director will also serve as a producer along with Toby Emmerich, former Warner Bros. film chief, and Christian Baha.
In a statement, Emmerich said, “I've been a fan of Peter Farrelly as both a filmmaker and a person since getting to work with him on the music for ‘Dumb and Dumberer.' But it was ‘Green Book' that made me think of Pete for this inspiring screenplay. Christian Baha and I feel blessed to have Pete at the helm for this movie.”
“And like the unknown Stallone starring in ‘Rocky,' Pete will be conducting a worldwide search to discover another actor who just needs one shot — in ‘I Play Rocky' — to show the world what he can do,” the statement continued.
Baha added, “When I first read Peter Gamble's energetic and poignant script, I knew it captured something very special. The story of ‘I Play Rocky' is as unique as Sylvester Stallone himself, a seeming Everyman with an undeniable gift who needs to share it with the world and refuses to take ‘no' for an answer.”
“And like the hero of our film, Baha Productions needed grit and determination as we fought for years to make this project into a reality. We are so fortunate to have teamed up with Toby Emmerich and Peter Farrelly, two legendary talents who not only share but enhance our vision of the film,” the producer said.
Will this be another Oscar winner for Farrelly?
Farrelly won two Oscars out of the five nominations Green Book received in 2019 for best picture and best original screenplay. Most recently, he wrote and directed the Prime Video movie Ricky Stanicky. Before that he also wrote and directed the 2022 biographical war comedy drama The Greatest Beer Run Ever.
Fans of Rocky recently lost Carl Weathers. He played Apollo Creed in the original film as well as the sequels. Weathers died in February at age 76. Stallone posted an Instagram video where he paid tribute to his co-star, saying, “never could've accomplished what we did with ‘Rocky' without him.” With Weathers' importance in the franchise, logically speaking he could also be in I Play Rocky.
It remains to be seen if Stallone will be involved in the film. Recently, it was reported that he wasn't happy about a rumored Creed spinoff movie based on Rocky IV's Drago played by Dolph Lundgren. The actor claimed that Irwin Winkler was developing the film behind his back, calling the producer “parasitical.” There has been a long-running dispute about the movie's ownership.
Stallone isn't exactly averse to spin-offs, just with Winkler's. He was nominated for an Oscar for 2015's Creed, which he also co-wrote, for best supporting actor. He reprised his Rocky Balboa role in the 2018 sequel Creed II.
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