Even though he created the franchise, secured three Academy Award nominations for his efforts, headlined six of the nine installments to date, directed two of them, and acted as the number one driving force behind cumulative box office takings well north of a billion dollars, Sylvester Stallone has never owned the rights to Rocky.
Instead, producer Irwin Winkler oversees the long-running property, which has seen Stallone cast out into the cold. Despite returning for Creed and its sequel, the Italian Stallion was nowhere to be found in the most recent chapter, leading many to voice their disappointment at star and director Michael B. Jordan opting to move forward without the beating heart of the entire universe.
The veteran action icon has voiced his disappointment on several occasions already, so you can only imagine how he’s feeling after the news broke that Amazon and MGM has opted to hand the keys to the Rocky kingdom over to Jordan, with the actor and producer developing an expanded universe that’s set to include additional feature films, spinoffs, a potential live-action TV series, and even an anime.
It was confirmed a while back that talks were being held over Florian Munteanu’s Viktor Drago getting his own standalone film, but it’s a crying shame that Stallone has been cut out entirely. After all, he was the one who put pen to paper back in the mid-1970s and launched the boxing phenomenon to award-winning heights, but it looks as though his association with the brand is over as Jordan takes over as the new figurehead.
Maybe he can return in a cameo capacity, but Rocky carrying on without Sly involved in any capacity is going to sting for a lot of folks, not least of all Sly himself.