Sylvester Stallone Goes Back to Round One for Rocky’s 50th Anniversary

Fifty years later, you still only need a few bars of “Gonna Fly Now” to start eyeing the nearest staircase. On November 5, the man who ran those steps and the man who made you want to run them reunited at Brooklyn’s historic Kings Theatre. Sylvester Stallone and composer Bill Conti were there for a one-night celebration of Rocky, with Gayle King on hand to get the story from the two men who gave the underdog his swagger and his soundtrack.

Photo Credit: Dave Allocca / Starpix

King sat down with Stallone and Conti to talk about how Rocky came together and what it took for Stallone to get his underdog story on screen. Anthony Ippolito and Oscar-winning director Peter Farrelly later joined the conversation, bringing the evening around to I Play Rocky, the new film about the fight Stallone had to win before Rocky Balboa could even step into the ring.

Ippolito plays a then-unknown Stallone, who had written a part he was determined to play, even if it meant risking the movie altogether. Hollywood kept telling him no. He kept insisting that if they wanted his script, they were getting him in the lead. It’s a delicious bit of symmetry that the man who wrote one of cinema’s most famous underdogs had to be one himself to get the film made.

AnnaSophia Robb, who also stars in I Play Rocky, joined the celebration, along with screenwriter Peter Gamble and producers Toby Emmerich, Christian Baha and Michele Weiss.

Amazon MGM Studios’ I Play Rocky opens in select theaters November 6 and nationwide November 20.

See photos from the event below

Photo Credit: Dave Allocca / Starpix

Photo Credit: Dave Allocca / Starpix

Photo Credit: Dave Allocca / Starpix

Photo Credit: Dave Allocca / Starpix

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