The inspirational story behind Sylvester Stallone’s against-all-odds journey to make the iconic Rocky is headed to the big screen. According to reports, a biopic titled I Play Rocky is currently in development, with Oscar-winning director Peter Farrelly (Green Book) attached to helm the project.
The film will chronicle Stallone’s arduous path to not only get his screenplay about a struggling boxer in Philadelphia made into a movie, but to also star in the lead role himself. As the logline states: “A struggling actor with a partially paralyzed face and a speech impediment 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. The movie becomes the biggest box office hit of 1976, notching ten Oscar nominations and winning Best Picture.”
Producer Toby Emmerich expressed his excitement at having Farrelly bring this remarkable true story to life, stating: “I’ve been a fan of Peter Farrelly as both a filmmaker and a person…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.”
The script for I Play Rocky is written by Peter Gamble, with Baha Productions’ Christian Baha also producing alongside Emmerich. Baha reflected on the uphill battle to get the project off the ground, paralleling Stallone’s own fight: “When I first read Peter Gamble’s energetic and poignant script, I knew it captured something very special…like the hero of our film, Baha Productions needed grit and determination as we fought for years to make this project into a reality.”
A key challenge will be finding the perfect actor to inhabit the role of the legendary Stallone and bring his iconic struggle to the screen. Will the filmmakers cast an unknown in the spirit of the film’s subject, or tap an established star to portray the future action hero icon?
Whichever route they choose, I Play Rocky promises to be an engrossing, against-the-odds tale celebrating Stallone’s perseverance and the extraordinary journey that birthed one of cinema’s most beloved underdogs in Rocky Balboa.
