But even then he has grave doubts about his chances. However, he eventually comes around and gets more serious about his training. At first Rocky refuses because he doesn't believe he is in the same class as the World Champion and doesn't deserve the honor. Then one day he gets a call from a man who wants to schedule a fight between him and the undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World who goes by the name "Apollo Creed" (Carl Weathers). Yet even then he realizes that he is going nowhere fast. Although he certainly isn't the brightest person around he has a big heart and does the best that he can. "Rocky Balboa" (Sylvester Stallone) is a boxer who struggles just trying to make ends meets in the city of Philadelphia. Chartoff and Winkler mortgaged their houses for the last $100,000. When Winkler and Chartoff told United Artists that they could only get the screenplay if Stallone starred, United Artists cut the budget to $1 million and had Chartoff and Winkler sign agreements that they would be personally liable if the film went over budget. After Winkler and Chartoff purchased the film, they took it to United Artists, who envisioned a budget of $2 million with an established star, particularly Robert Redford, Ryan O'Neal, Burt Reynolds, Nick Nolte or James Caan. They agreed, on the condition that Stallone continue to work as a writer without a fee, and that he work as an actor for scale. He had $106 in the bank and no car, and was trying to sell his dog because he couldn't afford to feed him, but he refused to sell unless they agreed to allow him to star in the film. Still, director John G.After producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff became interested in the script, they offered Sylvester Stallone an unprecedented $350,000 for the rights. The fact that it won the Oscar for Best Picture and became a blockbuster stands testament to the fact that filmgoers responded to it even if the material stands a slight step below quality-wise. Arriving in a decade populated with hard-edged terminally pessimistic dramas such as The French Connection, Serpico, Network, All the President's Men, Taxi Driver, and Apocalypse Now!, Rocky's optimism in presenting the simple unshakable drive of an everyman's champion makes it an underdog of a different sort. Sylvester Stallone's script and performance, ahem, punch up pure character out of a caricature and provide a heart-warming tale that impossibly sports a blue collar Can-Do human spirit that seems unbeatable, even in a very cynical age. In this PG-rated sports drama, a small-time Philadelphia boxer (Stallone) gets a supremely rare chance to fight the heavy-weight champion, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect. Indeed, if it had premiered 30 years earlier, this film very well might have been titled It's a Wonderful Life, You Bum. Remarkable not for its originality but for making a Capra-esque human drama that inspires rather patronizes, Rocky isn't the first underdog sports story but it does define the genre from here on-in. Predictable in the fact that filmgoers will always root for the underdog if they love that underdog, Rocky stands heads and shoulders above all of the boxing tales that try replicating its singular charm.including, ironically, its own sequels.
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