Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
This week, Amazon MGM Studios released images from its upcoming film I Play Rocky, a biographical drama about the making of the iconic Rocky film nearly half a century ago. I Play Rocky stars Anthony Ippolito in the role of the young Philadelphia boxer played by Sylvester Stallone in the 1976 classic movie. Ippolito is known for his role in The Offer, in which he played a young Al Pacino in a TV miniseries about the creation of another 1970s classic, The Godfather.
The pictures show Ippolito attired in the familiar gray sweatsuit that Rocky Balboa had worn, with the caption “The film tells the true story of an unknown actor with an unshakable belief that he wasn’t just meant to write Rocky — he was meant to be Rocky Balboa. Told no at every turn, Stallone bets everything on himself, holding the line on playing the lead against seemingly impossible odds. The result is the ultimate underdog story behind the ultimate underdog movie.“
In a statement last year, Christian Baha, the coproducer with Toby Emmerich of I Play Rocky, was quoted as saying; “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.“
Writing in GQ, critic Adam Cheung, however, panned the photographs released by Amazon, declaring: “The hoodie looks perfect—too perfect. The cotton’s got that just-right heathered-gray fade, the sleeves are artfully frayed and distressed, and even the ‘sweat’ looks strategically placed. It’s all there, yet somehow the realism…isn’t real. The original hoodie wasn’t ‘styled’; it was lived in. Stallone’s costume was wrinkled, grimy, and looked like it was genuinely on its last breath. This version feels like it comes with an on-set humidifier.”
Check out other articles by Edward.