One element of the original Rocky was radically different in Sylvester Stallone’s early screenplay, showing how close the franchise came to disaster.
The original screenplay for Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky featured one detail that would have changed the entire story for the worse. While certain later entries in the Rocky franchise struggled to locate grounding within the series’ increasingly high stakes, it’s worth remembering that the first Rocky thrives off its powerfully grounded, character-driven drama. While the boxing narrative is the 1976 film’s driving force, it’s the time spent in Rocky’s working-class neighborhood, witnessing how the world treats him and how he treats the world in turn, that makes the story so compelling.
Indeed, Stallone’s well-balanced screenplay takes a structural risk, only introducing the Apollo Creed boxing plot around halfway through the movie. The Best Picture Oscar-winner proves committed to offering an exhaustive portrait of Rocky as a person before it’s prepared to tell the story of Rocky as a boxer. The gamble paid off massively, earning $225 million on a budget of less than $1 million, and launching Stallone out of obscurity and into stardom. The franchise, which has made over $1.8 billion (via The Numbers) across 9 movies, owes its continued success to the strength of Stallone’s original outing; however, the script’s early drafts nearly made for a very different movie.
Rocky Was Far More Violent In Sylvester Stallone’s Initial Screenplay
The story behind Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky screenplay is now legendary after nearly 50 years. Inspired by the 1975 Ali-Wepner fight, Stallone wrote the first draft of the screenplay in just three days. The final script proved popular enough among studios for the then-unknown actor to leverage a starring role. Nevertheless, Stallone’s early draft saw a very different and less likable version of Rocky which almost sank the screenplay. The star reveals in the Netflix documentary Sly that his initial take on Rocky painted him as more thuggish, inspired by Martin Scorsese’s crime drama Mean Streets.
Stallone showed the screenplay draft to a friend, whose intense reaction caused him to reconsider the characterization. Stallone recalled (via Deadline) her saying, “I hate [Rocky]. He’s cruel. He hits people.” The friend recommended that Stallone show Rocky going out of his way to avoid inflicting violence in his job as a loan shark enforcer. What’s more, the conversation prompted Stallone to draft a girlfriend into the story. The girlfriend would become Rocky’s longtime romantic interest Adrian, whose subplot is the heart of the original Rocky movie.
Rocky’s Kind Heart Makes The Underdog Story Work
While Rocky wasn’t the first sports movie to tell a rags-to-riches underdog story, it’s certainly one of the best, and ended up popularizing the narrative within American cinema. Yet, Rocky’s underdog story only works if the character is sympathetic. Despite the cruelty of Rocky’s surroundings, he consistently makes the choice to respond with kindness, enacting a gentle and endearing courtship of the shy Adrian and even getting himself into trouble with his loan shark boss by sparing a debtor in one key scene.
Rocky’s big opportunity to fight Apollo Creed happens by chance. If Rocky had remained a cruel and violent character, it may have proven difficult for the viewer to see him as deserving of the lucky break. Indeed, it’s through his winning combination of kindness and perseverance that the movie is able to bring the audience onto Rocky’s side so completely. By focusing on building a likable protagonist from the ground up, Rocky delivers a perfect vehicle for the underdog story. Rocky’s lovable characterization carries not only the film, but an entire billion-dollar franchise.