Yo, Adrian!: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About The Rocky Franchise

In 1976, Sylvester Stallone burst onto the scene with Rocky, the inspired tale of an underdog boxer who lands a fight with a famed champion and trains to take on the challenge, all while falling in love. Rocky’s unexpected success led to a handful of sequels. The first string of sequels followed Rocky Balboa’s continuing boxing career, while the second series, Creed, has spun off to focus on the estranged son of Rocky’s mentor as Rocky trains him.

These movies have surprisingly held a better continuity than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here are 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About The Rocky Franchise.

10 Thanks to Rocky, Sylvester Stallone has an Oscars record tied with Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles

Sylvester Stallone wrote the script for Rocky, and turned down huge sums of money when investors refused to let him take the lead role. He eventually found a producer who would let him play the character he’d written for himself, and he went on to land Academy Award nominations for both Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.

With these nominations, Stallone became the third person in history to receive Oscar nominations for writing and acting in the same film, after Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles. Chaplin and Welles make up a pretty strong pair of Hollywood heavyweights to share a record with.

9 Rocky V originally ended with Rocky’s death

Rocky V, the story of an aging Rocky’s rivalry with newcomer Tommy Gunn, is the only movie in the eight-part (and counting) Rocky saga to lose money at the box office. In early conceptions of the movie’s script, Sylvester Stallone claims that he considered killing off Rocky at the end. He would’ve died unceremoniously in an ambulance on the way to a hospital, with Adrian at his side.

At the hospital, Adrian would announce Rocky’s death to the world, leading into a flashback to Rocky running up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum from the first film. Stallone ended up scrapping this ending, allowing the story to continue years later with Rocky Balboa.

8 Steven Caple Jr. shot Creed II’s fight scenes as a “violent ballet”

When Ryan Coogler became too busy with his commitments to Black Panther to helm the highly anticipated sequel to Creed, Steven Caple Jr. was brought on to direct Creed II. Caple wanted to capture the emotion in each fight scene, crafting each one as a “violent ballet.”

Kramer Morgenthau, the film’s cinematographer, used an Arriflex Arri Alexa camera fitted with Panavision lenses to shoot at 1,000 frames per second. This is a lot higher than the average 24 frames per second. Caple chose to do this to slow down the action, and carefully selected the color palette for the fight scenes to complement his vision.

7 Carl Weathers and Dolph Lundgren didn’t get along on the set of Rocky IV

In Rocky IV, Dolph Lundgren’s Ivan Drago kills Carl Weathers’ Apollo Creed in the ring despite the ref’s attempts to stop the fight, because there’s a deep hatred between the two. As it turns out, this wasn’t too far from the reality on-set. Lundgren and Weathers really didn’t get along while they were filming the sequel.

They even got into a violent confrontation in one of the boxing rings on the set. Lundgren threw Weathers into the corner, where Weathers yelled some curse words at Lundgren and stormed off the set. Sylvester Stallone had to step in to force the two actors to get along to prevent Weathers from quitting the movie.

6 Rocky Balboa was the first Rocky film to use real punches as sound effects

Rocky Balboa, the sixth film in the Rocky franchise, was the first one to use real punches as sound effects. The previous movies had used all kinds of sound effects ⁠— including bottles being broken, shotguns being fired, and baseball bats beating the hell out of wet leather ⁠— as substitutes for the punches. Rocky Balboa used the sounds of real punches for the fight scenes.

When the film was released, critics praised it for having the most realistic fight scenes in the franchise. Sylvester Stallone credits the use of real sound effects with the added realism of the movie’s fight scenes.

5 The original film’s script was tweaked to accommodate production errors

The production designers behind the original Rocky movie made a couple of mistakes, and the script had to be tweaked in order to accommodate them. The poster above the ring, before Rocky’s fight with Apollo, features Rocky wearing red shorts with a white stripe when, in fact, he wears white shorts with a red stripe. Plus, the robe sent for Sylvester Stallone to wear came in too baggy.

The prop team couldn’t afford to fix these issues, so Stallone decided to have Rocky point out both mistakes in the movie itself, noting the incorrectly-colored shorts and the bagginess of the robe.

4 Joe Esposito initially recorded The Karate Kid’s “You’re the Best” for Rocky III

Most of the Rocky movies have an iconic theme song that fans can add to their workout playlists. The theme from Rocky III ended up being Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” However, before the Survivor track was chosen, Joe Esposito threw his hat in the ring with “You’re the Best.”

When the Rocky team rejected Esposito’s song in favor of Survivor’s, Esposito ended up getting his song used in a similar montage in The Karate Kid. Interestingly, Survivor also provided the theme song for The Karate Kid, titled “The Moment of Truth,” so Esposito probably isn’t that band’s biggest fan.

3 Sylvester Stallone helped Michael B. Jordan deal with the pressure of taking over a franchise

When Michael B. Jordan was cast to play Adonis Creed in the Rocky spin-off Creed, he felt tremendous pressure as he took over a popular film franchise. Not only did he have to give a performance that was strong enough to launch a whole new series of films, he had to give a performance that was strong enough to win over Rocky fans who were used to seeing Sylvester Stallone at the helm of the franchise.

According to Jordan, Stallone himself helped a lot with the pressure: “Sly did the biggest thing for me, which was to take that pressure off of me…to not worry about competing or living up to what the other Rocky films were ⁠— just to be myself.”

2 In an early draft of Rocky II, a flashback showed how Rocky met Mickey

The first Rocky movie became the surprise sleeper hit of 1976, so it wasn’t long before a sequel was commissioned. In an early draft of the script for Rocky II, there was a flashback sequence that showed how Rocky met Mickey. The scene also revealed Rocky’s real name: Robert.

Rocky meeting Mickey is a piece of backstory that we didn’t need to see. Their relationship wasn’t defined by how it began; the main thing was that they continually stuck by each other as their circumstances changed. Plus, revealing Rocky’s “real” name might have taken away from some of his mystique as a screen icon.

1 Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren hit each other for real in Rocky IV – and Stallone was hospitalized

When Rocky IV went into production, Sylvester Stallone thought it might add an interesting layer of authenticity and intensity if he and Dolph Lundgren actually hit each other in their fight scenes. After three takes of Ivan Drago punching Rocky in the ribs, Stallone started to feel a burning sensation in his chest, but he ignored it.

Later that night, he had trouble breathing and was rushed to hospital, where he learned that his blood pressure had skyrocketed over 200. He was taken to intensive care, where he remained for four whole days. Lundgren had punched Stallone so hard that his heart slammed against his breastbone and swelled, cutting off his blood supply and limiting his oxygen flow.

About The Author

Ben Sherlock
(3465 Articles Published)

Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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