Trivialidades for
Rocky (1976)

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• When the movie was released, United Artists' publicity department released a story that an unknown actor called Sylvester Stallone had approached them with a script for a boxing picture but had insisted that they could only have the script if he were allowed to star in it himself. When they refused, so the story went, he threatened to take his script elsewhere so they offered him $18,000 which he gratefully accepted and the movie was made. Gabe Sumner, who was UA's head of publicity at the time, has since admitted that the story was a complete fabrication but that it served them extremely well and that it "promoted the whole underdog concept".
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone wrote the script in three days after he saw a boxing match between the unknown Chuck Wepner and Muhammad Ali. Unlike Rocky, Wepner was unable to last the distance and was TKO'd in the fifteenth round.
  
  
• The film was shot in 28 days.
  
  

• One of the posters for the film featured a shot of Rocky and Adrian holding hands. Although this was one of the most popular images associated with the film, the scene this image was taken from was cut from the film.
  
  
• The movie's line "Yo, Adrian." was voted as the #80 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #57 Greatest Movie of All Time.
  
  
• The movie's line "Adrian!" was voted as the #9 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• Stallone's first draft of the script was much darker: Mickey the trainer was originally written as a vile racist, and in the original ending, Rocky takes a fall in his fight with Apollo after accepting a bribe to do so.
  
  
• In the original script, Gazzo has his bodyguard bet three thousand dollars on Rocky in the Apollo Creed fight.
  
  
• Adrian's last name was Klein in the original script.
  
  
• The original script featured a pretzel vendor named Andy who was a boxer back in his day, who Rocky frequently talked to outside Mickey's gym.
  
  
• Marie's classic line "screw you creepo" was "fuck you creepo" in the original script. Obviously, the line had to be changed for the film to get a PG rating.
  
  
• In the original script, Paulie stated the reason he wanted Rocky to put in a good word for him with Tony Gazzo was because working in the cold, rough climate of the meat plant inflamed and swelled his joints constantly.
  
  
• The original script featured a scene in which Paulie and Adrian discussed Rocky's chances in the fight with Creed. To get through to Paule, Adrian used examples of famous people (Helen Keller was blind and deaf, Einstein flunked out of school twice, etc.)
  
  
• In the original script, the conversation between Rocky and Gazzo, when Gazzo gives Rocky the money for training expenses, was extended. Gazzo asks Rocky if he has plans for the money he'll be getting from the Creed fight, and he suggests Rocky consider putting it into the stock market.
  
  
• In the original script there was a scene in which Rocky beats up Dipper, the fighter who Mickey gave his locker too, because Dipper is complaining that Rocky is depriving him of a title shot.
  
  
• Shamrock Meats was called Eastern Packing in the original script.
  
  
• The boxing gloves used in the championship fight were called ''Casanovas''. They were illegal in the U.S. but Sylvester Stallone says the producers chose them anyway ''because of their sleek appearance''.
  
  
• Rocky is not the character's actual name. His real name is Robert Balboa - this was seen in a rough script from the second film. He took the nickname from real-life boxer Rocky Marciano.
  
  
• In an interview Sylvester Stallone was asked about if he and Elvis Presley ever met. Stallone said that in 1976 after "Rocky" (1976) was released, Elvis contacted him and asked him to visit his house Graceland and a bring a copy of the film with him. Stallone told the interviewer that he was too afraid to meet Elvis, and he didn't go but send a copy to him. Elvis did watch the film with his friends.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone insisted that the scene where he admits his fears and doubts to Adrian the night before the fight be filmed, even though production was running far behind and producers wanted to skip it. He had one take for that scene, and was so nervous about screwing up the only scene he thought was important that he got himself drunk to do it.
  
  
• The fight scene was filmed in reverse order starting with the fifteenth round, with Stallone and Carl Weathers in heavy make-up. As filming continued, the make-up was slowly removed until they were at round one. Because of this technique, the movie won an Oscar for Best Film Editing.
  
  
• The studio agreed to cast Stallone as Rocky as long as the cost of the picture remained under one million dollars. The producers even mortgaged their homes. The overall production cost was 1.1 million dollars.
  
  
• Another ending for the film was for Creed's fans to carry him out of the ring and then Rocky's fans do the same. However, since there were too few extras, plus some of them began to punch Stallone and Weathers, the scene was scrapped.
  
  
• Originally the filmmakers wanted all of the real former heavyweight champions to appear at the beginning of the fight between Rocky and Apollo. They put out a call for all of the former champions to show, but on the day of the shoot only Joe Frazier showed. The filmmakers thought it worked well however, because Frasier is a resident of Philadelphia, which was where the movie was shot and took place.
  
  
• The scene that involved Rocky and Adrian kissing in Rocky's kitchen was originally not scripted the way it was shot. Talia Shire had contracted the flu and was worried about getting Stallone sick, so she was very hesitant to kiss him. Her hesitation and behavior was actually such an improvement over the scripted scene that they decided to keep it.
  
  
• Stallone based his Rocky character on a little-known New Jersey club boxer named Chuck Wepner. In March 1975, Wepner challenged the then-heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali to a title fight in Cleveland, Ohio. He lasted almost the entire fifteen rounds and became one of the few challengers to Ali to knock him to the ground.
  
  
• Rocky has a turtles named Cuff & Link.
  
  
• Bette Midler turned down an offer for the role of Adrian.
  
  
• Parts of the scene where Rocky runs up the stairs in training are played backwards. Originally the shot zooms out but was reversed to zooming in in order to better match the musical score and for dramatic effect. This has been confirmed in interviews with by Bill Conti, who wrote the score.
  
  
• The photos on Rocky's mirror are actual photos of Sylvester Stallone as a young boy.
  
  
• Two scenes were written that do not appear in the final cut of the film: a scene where Rocky visits his gym with Apollo Creed as a photo op and Rocky beats up Dipper, the fighter who took his locker earlier in the story and a scene the night of the big fight in the locker room between Rocky and Adrian. The locker room scene was at least filmed because production stills from it exist.
  
  
• The two scenes where Rocky runs up the museum stairs (the first where he can't do it and the second during the "Gonna Fly Now" training sequence where he runs up them triumphantly) were filmed two hours apart. The first before the sun rose, the second afterwards.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone really did punch the frozen meat in the training scene in the movie. In fact he did it so many times in many different takes that after filming was finished, he noticed the shape of his hands was different. His knuckles were left completely flattened and they remain that way to this day.
  
  
• According to Sylvester Stallone, the producers also wanted Stallone let 'James Caan' play Rocky. Caan and Stallone eventually became friends. Caan guest appeared on Stallone's series "The Contender" (2005).
  
  
• Frank Stallone, Sylvester Stallone's father, rang the opening bell of the Creed vs Balboa fight. Sylvester's younger brother, Frank Stallone, played the lead singer of a band and told Rocky to "Get a job, you bum!"
  
  
• Director John G. Avildsen can be seen as the cameraman and cinematographer James Crabe plays the lighting man for Rocky's TV interview in the meat-house.
  
  
• The scene when Gazzo uses his asthma inhaler while talking to Rocky was not planned. The actor had a real asthma attack during the filming of the scene and since it looked so natural they left it in.
  
  
• Susan Sarandon tested for the role of Adrian.
  
  
• Ranked #4 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time (2006).
  
  
• When Bill Conti originally played "Gonna Fly Now" for John G. Avildsen, he didn't have title for it until Avildsen said, "It should be almost like Rocky is flying now."
  
  
• After seeing the fight between Chuck Wepner and Muhammad Ali, Stallone thought about the story for about a month before he sat down and wrote a first draft in three days. After getting some notes from the producers, Stallone and his wife put together a new draft in 86 hours. Stallone and the producers then worked on a third draft through the summer of 1975.
  
  
• In one dockside scene the bow and name of the oil carrier Sohio Resolute makes a brief but prominent appearance. The ship was scrapped some years after filming.
  
  
• For the championship fight, the filmmakers had trouble getting extras to fill the arena because it was a low-budget film that was not yet known to anyone. Stock footage of crowds was used to help this problem, but empty seats are still visible in some shots.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone quit smoking cigarettes while making this film because he was getting out of breath.
  
  
• In the film, the total amount of money that Rocky gets from Gazzo is $570. $20 for his loan shark job, $50 for his date with Adrian, and $500 for training expenses.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone had originally wanted Harvey Keitel for the role of Paulie.
  
  
• Michael Dorn's film debut.
  
  
• Talia Shire's character, Adrian Pennino, was named after Shire's grandfather Francesco Pennino.
  
  

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