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Go behind the scenes of I Play Rocky with Anthony Ippolito, AnnaSophia Robb, Peter Farrelly and more
Featurette: Amazon MGM Studios

Winner of the 49th Denver Film Festival Audience Award for Narrative Feature

I Play Rocky
Directed by Peter Farrelly
Rated PG-13
Punched 6 November 2026
#IPlayRocky

I Play Rocky is pure joy.

The Long Goodbye

This is a rare case of the real-life underdog story behind the fictional underdog story it birthed being every bit as inspiring and uplifting, if not even more so. Piling it on, there’s a strange feeling while watching I Play Rocky. The movie simply “feels good.” And it’s striking, after seeing I Play Rocky, to look back on the movies of 2026 and realize this has not been a year for “feel good” movies. Hardly. “Pure joy”? It’s a breed of movie on the verge of extinction in these challenging times.

While watching I Play Rocky there are several times when it’s completely forgotten that’s not Sylvester Stallone on the screen. It’s Anthony Ippolito turning in a jaw-droppingly impeccable performance as Sly. It’s funny to scroll through Ippolito’s list of credits. They include a role as Al Pacino in the Paramount+ streaming series The Offer, about the making of The Godfather. And, in Pixels, he played a character who was the 13-year-old version of Adam Sandler’s lead role of Brenner.

The kid is fantastic.

And he stays in the picture.

No matter what the studio execs say. No matter how much they offer to get him out of the way.

Well, that’s the treatment 26-year-old Mike Stallone was getting at auditions. He didn’t like his birthname, Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, because as a kid speaking with a slur thanks to a partially paralyzed face because of a difficult birth, he was constantly teased. It didn’t help to have Sylvester the Cat, a popular cartoon character at the time, speaking with a lisp so easily mocked and ridiculed by other kids his age.

Stallone rightfully both supported and stayed away from I Play Rocky. According to director Peter Farrelly (one-half of the Farrelly brothers, the directing duo that delivered punchy comedy hits including There’s Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber), the movie would’ve been scrapped if Stallone didn’t offer his blessing. He did. And, having seen the final cut, he loved it. So, while Stallone was not directly involved in this production, his reaction has certainly been a complete 180 from his response to Creed III, the first movie in the spin-off series to not include the Italian Stallion in any capacity.

Nonetheless, Stallone still makes an appearance in I Play Rocky by way of a post-credits scene in which vintage footage from The Tonight Show features Johnny Carson talking up this new boxing picture that’s sweeping the country, Rocky. Johnny notes how the story behind the making of the movie was so crazy, it too could be turned into a movie. And then there are bits of his interview with Stallone. It is most definitely worth waiting for the end credits to finish their scroll.

The Conversation

Rocky was nominated for 10 Oscars and won three (Best Picture, Best Director and Best Editing). Stallone would – as incredibly unlikely as it could possibly seem – become the first man since Orson Welles to be nominated for both Best Actor and Best Screenplay for the same movie.

With the original Rocky celebrating the 50th anniversary of its release on December 3, 2026, the timing is perfect for I Play Rocky. Also commemorating the event, 80-year-old Stallone recently released his humble and self-effacing autobiography, The Steps, which features new music written by Bill Conti for the Stallone-narrated Audible edition.

But there’s more to it than commemorating the original movie’s miraculous making and release.

Helping put it all in perspective, screenwriter Peter Gamble made some great, touching opening remarks as he introduced the movie at the opening night of the 49th Denver Film Festival.

“What drew me to Stallone’s story was that for most of my career I did ghostwriting and I felt unseen. People saw my words up on the screen, they saw my ideas, pieces of my soul, but they had no idea I had anything to do with it. And I saw something in Stallone’s story. Stallone was this actor who had a speech impediment, he has a partially paralyzed face and all anyone saw in him was a thug or a cop. But he believed he had something in his heart and his soul. And he believed in it so much that he poured it out onto the page. When people saw that script they loved it, they fell in love with it, they wanted to make it, but they didn’t want him. They wanted a star. But through the power of his belief, an absolute belief in himself, he transformed the world until they saw he was the star they were looking for.

“I think this story is more universal than maybe we realize. I think there are a lot of people in the audience who feel unseen, or have felt unseen, or have felt like an underdog. And they felt like they had something in their heart and their soul and if they could just get it out on the page, if they could just get it out in the universe, if they could create something, that they had something to offer the universe. So, I want to dedicate this movie to anyone who has ever felt that way.

“If there’s one thing you take from this movie, I hope it’s this, which is to live your life like you’re the main character in the movie. And I don’t mean with ego. I mean with passion. I mean, if you have a dream, fight for it. Whatever lesson the universe is trying to teach you, learn it. Do what terrifies you. Humble yourself. Learn to love better. Have the courage to believe in yourself, even when nobody else does. Because I believe we are all main characters, even if the world hasn’t recognized it yet.”

Gamble’s introduction was a winner and his screenplay is a total knockout. There are lines of dialogue here that sound so remarkably natural. They truly sound like things Stallone himself would say, not just Rocky. And that includes a very funny joke he makes while walking the mean streets of New York City with Sasha (wonderfully portrayed by AnnaSophia Robb), a co-worker at the movie theatre where he’s a ticket taker. The streets are a dangerous place to walk alone, he says, so maybe he should accompany her and she can protect him on the way back to the subway. It’s a great, gentle movie moment that rings of Stallone’s humor. He’s afraid of getting beat up, so the smooth talker thinks maybe she could walk him to the subway to keep him safe.

But the focus of their conversations, naturally, is the movies. It’s their employment and their passion. And Stallone has an uncanny ability to dissect the mechanics of movies and call out their “cheats,” including one in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, in which a small – but significant – bit of recorded dialogue all of a sudden has a different inflection point at a key moment.

Making a deal with Sylvester Spillane
Clip: Amazon MGM Studios

Lords of Flatbush

While Stallone has expressed his approval of the movie, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s 100% accurate. But in a case like this, accuracy isn’t the goal. Unlike recent movies, such as Primetime, nobody is made to look “bad.” The creative licenses taken here certainly serve to amplify the very real absurdity of Stallone’s background and the significance of what he accomplished.

But, yeah, there is a guy named Sandy Maddox, hilariously played by Tracy Letts (Ford v Ferrari). He’s not real. What he is the embodiment of several different studio execs. He rails against Paramount and the success of The Godfather. It’s all sour grapes. Damn, he wishes United Artists took that leap on a bunch of notes for a novel that would become one of the most celebrated movies of all time. And he’s forced to watch The Lords of Flatbush twice, because he didn’t even know who Stallone was playing the first time through.

And boxing movies? Good heavens. They’re box office poison!

Sandy doesn’t want to put a lot of money into this thing, but at the same time it is a spectacular screenplay. Written by Stallone in a scant three days (according to legend), with Sasha, now his wife, doing triple duty as his typist and motivator. Give Sandy a star known by his last name alone (Bronson. Eastwood. Reynolds. O’Neal. Redford.) and you’ve got $2 million to spend. If you keep that Stallone kid – if he is silly enough to turn down a buyout of $25,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 or $175,000 or $375,000 – then you’ll get only $1 million and the kid is out if the movie falls one day behind schedule.

Rocky director John G. Avildsen (Jay Duplass) hates boxing, hates boxing movies and insists Rocky is not a boxing movie. (Until it is.) Duplass is great, as are Toby Kebbell and P.J. Byrne as co-producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler. It’s a stacked cast without a single weak link, with Matt Dillon playing Sylvester’s rough-edged father, Frank. He, too, had theatrical dreams, but he settled into life as a barber.

The way Farrelly directs and cinematographer Sean Porter shoots I Play Rocky, it’s clear they’re fans. Some of the camera angles used in filming Stallone’s life slickly mimic those used while filming Rocky.

Who should play Rocky?
Clip: Amazon MGM Studios

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Quotable Rocky

“If you don’t believe in yourself, how are you going to get anyone else to believe in you?”

“Let go of the head.”

“On our next film, everybody gets a polygraph.”

“How many takes do you need to be you?”

“Two would be nice.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t get sick.”

“I make deals with countries. You understand? I’ve made deals with the commies. With the Chinese. And we can’t make a deal with Sylvester Spillane?”

“Come on. Anyone can be a writer. All you gotta do is write! What’s it gonna cost? Time? You’ve got time. And what’s it need? Ideas. Every day you’re tellin’ me how to fix a movie.”

“Nope. I play Rocky.”