In the first film, the Italian Stallion goes the distance against world champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in the second, he overcomes the odds and wins the title. The Rocky series would have made sense as a trilogy. I owe everything in the world to him.” This is hilarious in hindsight: there were another three Rocky films and three Creeds to go. “But I guess he’s growing up and has to go his own way. “I sure don’t want to let go of him,” said Stallone. Speaking in a behind the scenes feature, Stallone wondered what life would be like without Rocky Balboa. Rocky III was meant to be the final round – the end of a trilogy. At one point, Stallone considered having Rocky fight a Russian inside the Roman Colosseum. Stallone later said that he’d always wanted to make a third Rocky film but he couldn’t find the story to do it justice. ![]() Stallone’s non-Rocky films – including Paradise Alley, Nighthawks, and Escape to Victory – hadn’t hit quite so hard. Not a comeback from defeat – Rocky was now the champ, after all – but from box office mediocrity. “Rocky III shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s part of the cultural landscape in the United States – part of the American vernacular.”Īfter Rocky II – a hit in 1979 – a comeback was inevitable. ![]() “It’s when Rocky has become a bona fide franchise,” says Travis Vogan, a media and sports professor from University of Iowa, and author of The Boxing Film. It was also the most successful Rocky so far – a blockbuster smash – and one of the most significant action films of the 1980s. It packs not only a punch, but some of the series’ most iconic elements – the statue, the song, the sight of Rocky and Apollo Creed frolicking in the sea. KO’ing the grit and realism of the original, Rocky III is the moment that Rocky transitions from Oscar-winning drama to action – a thunderous punch-fest packed with hyper-macho cliches and rampant homoeroticism. (In a classic Simpsons gag, Bart learns how to add Roman numerals through the many Rocky films: “Rocky V plus Rocky II equals Rocky VII: Adrian’s Revenge!”) It’s true that few film series can justify a Part III beyond it being a churned-out cash grab.īut there’s more fight in Rocky III. Rocky soon became shorthand for that very 1980s trend of relentless sequels. ![]() ![]() It's easy to believe that the art commission, mockingly called “the Guardians of Good Taste” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, would write off anything to do with Rocky III, a tightly formulaic sequel that thumps along to Eye of the Tiger, and pits Rocky against TV hardman Mr. It was, said Gorman, “a statue that the public can relate to”. It kicked off a battle between blue collar locals – who adopted the fictitious Balboa as an icon of Philly pride – and stuffy art commission officials, who thought the statue was too lowbrow for pride of place at the museum.Ī truck driver named Art Gorman led the campaign to keep the statue. But Stallone’s gesture – gifting Philadelphia with an 8½ft, 1,500lb monument to himself – caused some controversy. Stallone imagined that the statue would remain permanently in that spot at the Museum of Art. It took Schomberg more than a year to complete. In reality, Stallone had commissioned the sculptor A. Before the filming for Rocky III began, Sylvester Stallone gifted the film’s most iconic prop – the Rocky Balboa statue – to the City of Philadelphia. In the story, the statue is revealed to Balboa at the “Rocky steps” – the 72 steps that lead up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art – where, in the original film, Rocky runs and raises his arms in near-victory – the sign of a good morning’s training montage. That image of the Italian Stallion atop the steps presides – in triumphant spirit, at least – over the entire series, including the newest installment, Creed III.
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