Sylvester Stallone is one of the most iconic action heroes in Hollywood and the star got his big break from a movie that he wrote himself and that practically gave birth to the sports underdog movie genre, Rocky .
Rocky is the story of an underdog boxer (which Stallone plays himself) that gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot at the world title and earns his respect and legacy through pure heart.
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Rocky was released in 1976 and became an instant hit, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and also becoming the highest-grossing movie of the year. The success of Rocky resulted in 4 sequels and a separate movie franchise spawning from it called Creed which has a 3rd installment releasing soon.
But despite writing the first movie and starring in every single movie of the franchise ever since, Stallone has no ownership rights of the franchise. All the rights of the franchise are reserved with Irwin Winkler, who has served as the producer in every single movie of the franchise.
Recently, Stallone took to Instagram to post a picture of Winkler with his head on a snake’s body and a knife replacing his tongue and in the caption, Stallone accused Winkler of withholding the rights to Rocky years while demanding that Stallone gets “what’s left” of his rights to the franchise.
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This isn’t the first time that Stallone has expressed his grievance over not having his due rights to the franchise. Stallone has been expressing his frustrations for a few years now and in response, Winkler has expressed surprise at the spectacle, claiming that while Stallone has no rights to the franchise, he has still made hundreds of millions of dollars from the movies. Stallone in response got furious that his rights to the franchise were being taken away just because he made so much money off of the movies.
Stallone has said that he wants his rights because Rocky is his legacy and he wants to leave some of it for his children. Stallone’s family is deeply tied to the Rocky films with his son Sage even appearing in the 5th installment in the role of Rocky’s son.
Stallone’s fans expressed their support on social media for his cause and Stallone thanked them and told them to keep on punching.
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