The creator of Rocky is not at all happy with the latest developments in the franchise.
Sylvester Stallone continues to exercise his hook. The actor has turned his Instagram profile into a ring for the second time in just a month to express his complaints about the current owners of the Rocky franchise .
The most recent was on Saturday night, at which time he posted on his profile a screenshot of a news story about Drago , an ongoing project that would likely continue the story of Ivan Drago, the Rocky IV villain played by Dolph Lundgren and his son, Creed II baddie Viktor Drago ( Florian Munteanu ). MGM has hired screenwriter Robert Lawton to handle the script.
Interestingly, Lawton first came to the industry’s attention with Becoming Rocky , a script about the making of the first Rocky movie that was never produced.
“Again they break my heart… I just discovered this… ONCE AGAIN, this PATHETIC 94-year-old PRODUCER and THE Idiots OF HIS VULTURE CHILDREN, Charles and David, return to despoil THE REMAINS of another wonderful character created by me without even telling me … I APOLOGIZE to the FANS, I never wanted these parasites to exploit the ROCKY characters…”, reads his angry caption.
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The “pathetic 94-year-old producer” mentioned above refers to Irwin Winkler , the 91-year-old Oscar-winning producer of the Rocky franchise , as well as other acclaimed films such as One of Us , Around Midnight , Raging Bull , The Gambler and Dance, dance, damned ones.
Although Stallone wrote the script for the first Rocky film and directed most of its sequels, he does not own the rights to the character.
When the script was in development, studio United Artists wanted a more well-known actor to star ( Burt Reynolds was on the list, as were James Caan and Ryan O’Neal ).
Winkler (and co-producer Robert Chartoff ) supported Sly when he turned down an offer of 300,000 euros for the script alone at a time when he barely had 106 in his bank account.
The film was made with a smaller budget, and Stallone earned 75,000 euros as screenwriter and star, in addition to taking a percentage of the profits. However, since the producers supported him in his desire to play the role, he did not retain ownership rights to the character.
As we all know, the film became a true phenomenon, winning the Oscar for best film and launching Stallone to stardom (in addition, it is estimated that its profit percentage reached the figure of 2.5 million euros).
Although Stallone is still listed as a producer on Creed III , which opens later this year, it is the first of the nine films in the saga in which he will not appear , and the second after Creed: The Legend of Rocky , in the one that does not appear in the script credits. He co-wrote Creed II: The Legend of Rocky , but curiously not the first one.
Earlier this month, Stallone released two other messages via his Instagram, but both have since been deleted .
The first (and most relevant considering his last mention of the “vulture children”) came after Stallone released his review of the book The Arrangement: A Love Story, the memoirs of David Winkler , Irwin’s son, who is part of the family business.
“ You already know that I love to read and that I have read thousands of books, but I have to say that THIS is by far the worst! If you ever run out of toilet paper, PLEASE buy it, you won’t be disappointed,” was Stallone’s verdict .
To which he added that this “unbearable worthless garbage was written by the painfully inept David Winkler,” taking the opportunity to qualify to Irwin Winkler as “the extraordinarily incompetent parasitic producer of Rocky and Creed .”
The actor continued (with a few unnecessary capital letters and apostrophes in between) explaining that he loved the late Robert Chartoff very much, and then complained that “if it weren’t for Winkler there would have been at least three more Rocky’s , that would have been wonderful.”
concluding that “ honestly, those bunch are the worst subhuman beings I have ever met in the film industry .” I will always love my loyal fans and will continue to deliver the punches!!! REMEMBER HOW GOOD IT FEELS TO TALK FROM YOUR HEART.”
By the way, The Arrangement addresses David Winkler’s philosophy of “ethical non-monogamy” and the depths of his life as a sugar daddy , detailing the wealthy Hollywood producer’s encounters with “a beautiful Instagram model” for whom the author he felt attracted.
One day after the attack on several generations of the Winklers, in mid-July Stallone published another now-deleted text in which he clarified that he was angry for not owning the rights to his most famous character .
“Actually I would like [that] they would give me back at least a little of WHAT IS LEFT OF MY RIGHTS, before leaving it as an inheritance ONLY TO THEIR CHILDREN – I think that would be a FAIR gesture,” he declared, adding that this whole matter ” “It corrodes the soul because I wanted to bequeath a part of Rocky to my children.”
We hope that Stallone, who is rumored to have joined the exclusive Mar-a-Lago club and whose estimated wealth reached €400 million in 2018, according to Men’s Health calculations , will retain the rights to Cobra, the strong arm of the law .
Original article published by Vanity Fair US and translated and adapted by Darío Gael Blanco. Access the original here .