The small budget meant that the production team had to get creative. Interiors were shot in L. Instead, the team spent less than a week on location, quietly shooting exteriors using a nonunion crew. Driving around in a nondescript van, director John Avildsen would spot an interesting locale—a portside ship, a food market—and usher Stallone out to jog, sometimes for miles, while he rolled film.
The slim budget was evident everywhere. His wife worked as the set photographer. A crucial scene where Rocky confesses his fears about the fight to Adrian played by Talia Shire was almost cut before Stallone begged the producers to give him just one take.
When the director proposed shooting a date between Rocky and Adrian at an ice rink, the producers laughed. A rink full of extras, combined with the costs of filming all the takes, seemed risky. In the movie, Rocky pays off a manager to let the duo skate in an empty rink. The result was easier to shoot and made for a beautiful metaphor: a clumsy dance between two misfits, each holding the other up.
Though both were incredible physical specimens, neither had ever boxed and their earliest attempts were exhausting. When the director saw their first sparring efforts, he told Stallone to go home and write out the beats.
Stallone returned with 14 pages of lefts, rights, counters, and hooks, all delivered using camera-friendly gloves too small to be legal in a real prizefight. As they practiced, Avildsen circled them with an 8mm camera, recording them to point out their weaknesses.
Studying all that footage paid off. The fight was shot in front of 4, restless extras, corralled with the promise of a free chicken dinner. In the original ending, Rocky walks off with Adrian backstage. The producers paid for the overage themselves, allowing for the unforgettable final scene: Rocky in the ring, with Adrian fighting through the crowd to reach him, her hat pulled off by a crew member using fishing wire.
It was the perfect crescendo to an emotional journey—not only for Rocky, but for his alter ego. A clever publicist, Sumner knew he had quite the task in front of him: selling an old-fashioned boxing movie starring a nobody. He sold the narrative about Stallone, a self-made actor-writer who had scraped and clawed his way to the top, as irresistibly American. Suited up in worn-out track clothes he leaves the flat to run through the nearly-deserted city streets. A lonely existence where his only challenger is himself.
The down-and-outer rises from the depths of his own despair and failures, pulling along his friends and family, to win the battle and triumph in the end. Well, yes, it had been done many times prior to , certainly in literature and, of course, in dozens of movies. We can relate to second chances. That is the universal appeal of this movie. Smith Goes to Washington : the little guy fights the special interests and wins.
Start over again, maybe you win, maybe you lose. You fall off the horse, you get up and climb back in the saddle. Or Robert Redford, another actor who was considered to play Rocky. Maybe Reynolds or Caan I could see, but Redford? Yet Stallone as adamant about his position and eventually prevailed. The background story in getting Rocky to film is inspirational enough, but the movie is one to really make people want to stand up and cheer.
It is a feel good movie that can make the viewer want to get up and go out and beat the odds on his or her own personal endeavors. There is something about Rocky Balboa Sylvester Stallone that induces pathos in the average viewer. He is an average Joe who is just trying to get along in a gritty world. He participates in low budget fights at his local gym, making probably just barely enough to pay for the bandages and antiseptic to heal for the next bout.
His real job is as a collector for a loan shark. Rocky lives alone with his turtles and a goldfish, in a dingy apartment in Philadelphia. His best friend, Paulie Burt Young is his only real human companionship. At the same time, the current heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed Carl Weathers , is struggling with his own problems. He has planned a bout to usher in the bicentennial year of to be fought on New Years Day, but his scheduled opponent has had to back out.
Ever the self-promoter, Creed wants to fight just a scheduled, but is left to find an opponent who is willing and healthy enough to be ready in just six weeks. Creed comes up with a great promotional idea that will fit the bill: He will fight an unknown, thus giving the idea that anyone can achieve his chance at stardom, even if he is a common ordinary everyman.
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