Yo, Adrian — I wanna star in this movie I’m writing, but all I’m getting is no after no. Looks like it’s not gonna fly now.
Here’s the electrifying first trailer for I Play Rocky, director Peter Farrelly‘s film starring Anthony Ippolito as an unknown young actor named Sylvester Stallone.
See, the kid’s got this screenplay called Rocky about an small-time boxer getting his Big Shot, and the scribe has this nagging, driving belief that he — and only he — should play Rocky Balboa. Take a look.
This is the underdog tale of an underdog aspiring actor-filmmaker making the ultimate underdog flick a half-century ago. As the Hollywood history books show, Stallone indeed did play the Italian Stallion and went on to score Oscar noms for Best Actor and Original Screenplay. Rocky got 10 Academy Awards noms in all and won three, including Best Picture over an ultracompetitive field that included Network, All the President’s Men, Taxi Driver and Bound for Glory.
Ippolito is known for his portrayal of Al Pacino in the Paramount+ miniseries The Offer and now strikes an uncanny resemblance to another screen icon.
Peter Gamble penned I Play Rocky, which also stars Matt Dillon, AnnaSophia Robb, P.J. Byrne, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Jay Duplass, Stephan James, Kiki Seto, Robert Morgan, Saul Stein, Trevor St. John, Erik Palladino and Rob Demery. The first footage debuted for exhibitors at CinemaCon in April. We also saw rousing footage of the film at a private buyer’s event at the Cannes Film Festival and the room really took to what they saw.
Amazon MGM Studios has set an awards-season limited opening for the film, which hits select theaters on November 6. This one could have a bright future at the box office and come the awards race.
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