So much for Sylvester Stallone saying farewell to Rocky Balboa. It was just late last year when Stallone made an emotional good-bye tribute to the character that made his career, and yet according to a Variety report, plans are already underway for him to get back into the squared circle once again in an effort to expand the Rocky franchise beyond the already-successful Creed spinoffs.
The 73-year-old Stallone told Variety recently that talks are underway for another Rocky film, and no, this isn't meant to be Creed III. The timely story, which I guess would be Rocky VII, would follow “the onetime boxing champ befriending a young street fighter living in the U.S. illegally.” A producer, Irwin Winkler, added that Stallone is being sought to write and star in the film.
Furthermore, "discussions" have begun to try and develop a Rocky prequel series, possibly for a streaming platform, that would follow the famous Philadelphia fighter's early career.
If the thought of more Rocky movies makes your soul hurt as it does mine, the rest of the story is even more disappointing. Stallone confesses that, despite being the guy who built this underdog story from the ground up in 1976, has no ownership or control of the franchise at all...
“I have zero ownership of ‘Rocky.’ Every word, every syllable, every grammatical error was all my fault,” he tells Variety. “It was shocking that it never came to be, but I was told, ‘Hey, you got paid, so what are you complaining about?’ I was furious.” That said, he blames his own naiveté and lack of business savvy at the time for not pushing the issue hard enough: “You don’t want to ruffle the feathers of the golden goose.”
Winkler retorted that Stallone's griping was unwarranted because he's made millions from Rocky over the years, which is indeed true. However, Stallone seems to have come to a realization that mistakes made when he was young are still coming back to bite him. Whether he thinks it should happen or not, Rocky will continue on long after he's gone, grow bigger with or without his involvement, and there's very little he can do about it other than stick around and make sure too much damage isn't done to the iconic character he created.
