A film telling the origin story of the first Rocky movie is pressing ahead at Amazon MGM. Green Book’s Peter Farrelly will be directing.
Prequel and origin stories, eh? There was a period of time where it looked as though we were going to get a sixth Die Hard movie. The idea was to set half of it in the past, so we could learn the origin story of John McClane, arguably Bruce Willis’ most iconic screen role.
We didn’t need to know the origin of John McClane of course. Every piece of information we needed is in the script to the original Die Hard. We’re given what we need for the story to be told and for us to understand the story. What we didn’t need was an exploration of why John McClane became a cop, how he met his wife, and other such details. The project was nixed when Disney bought up Fox.
When I first read about a Rocky origins project though, I winced. Still, it’s not quite what it appears.
The idea isn’t to take us into the early years of Rocky Balboa, and his early struggles. Instead, it’s going to be looking into how the first Rocky film came about in the first place.
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Entitled I Play Rocky, the film has been bubbling around since last year, but Amazon MGM Studios has now confirmed that it’ll be pressing ahead. Peter Farrelly, he of Green Book, is going to be directing the movie. The script has been written by Peter Gamble.
It’s unclear at this stage if Sylvester Stallone will have any direct involvement in the production, but obviously, he’s aware of it. It’s also, in truth, something of a biopic of him as well, and hopefully opens the door for a film about the making of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. Or, even better, Rocky IV.
No word yet on who’s going to be playing Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky, but news comes in from CinemaCon that this is definitely happening now. More as we hear it.
