Not only didRockylaunchStallones movie career; it made him an A-list star.
Whereas many movie stars today rely on familiar I.P.
likeStar Warsor Marvel superheroes to give them a reliable series,Sylvester Stallone generated his own franchises.
AfterRockybecame popular enough to score decades worth of sequels, Stallone kickstarted theRamboandExpendablesfranchises as a backup.
First Bloodstarted Rambos story with a grounded critiqueof the unfair treatment of returning Vietnam War veterans.
Stallone has starred in eightRockymovies, fiveRambomovies, and fourExpendablesmovies.
That all changed with the sequels.
In his bookCinema Speculation,Quentin Tarantino criticizes the laterRockysequelsfor feeling more like single-issue comic books than real movies.
Lang and Drago were motivated by nothing more than destroying Rocky.
Apollo had a much more nuanced motivation; he wanted to fight the underdog as a publicity stunt.
Custom Image by Milica Djordjevic
