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Higher education professional by day, writer and pop culture enthusiast by night. When he isn't writing for The Cinema Spot, Tristian can be found creating content for his YouTube and TikTok pages, or working on the young adult novel he has been trying to finish for the last three years.
Actor Sylvester Stallone, known for portraying the fictional boxing legend Rocky Balboa, recently spoke out about his dissatisfaction with Rocky producer, Irvin Winkler. Variety reported on Sunday that Stallone took to Instagram with the following message:
“A VERY Flattering portrait of The Great Rocky/ Creed Producer , IRWIN WINKLER, from one of the country‘s greatest artist … ALSO after IRWIN controlling ROCKY for over 47 years , and now CREED, , I really would like have at least a little WHAT’s LEFT of my RIGHTS back, before passing it on to ONLY YOUR CHILDREN – I believe That would be a FAIR gesture from this 93 year old gentleman ? … This is a painful subject That eats at my soul , because I wanted to leave something of Rocky for my children, but it’s always great hearing from the loyal fans… Keep Punching” – Via Instagram
The message was posted alongside an image of Winkler as a dagger-tongued serpent. Although Stallone conceived, wrote, and starred in the original 1976 film, he informed Variety back in 2019 that he had zero ownership rights. In that same year, Winkler told Variety he was surprised to learn of Stallone’s resentment regarding the franchise. Winkler pointed out that Stallone had received millions of dollars due to profit participation and upfront fees. Stallone also made money both starring and producing the Rocky spin-offs, Creed and Creed 2.
Stallone has continued to state that his main motivation is seeking equitable rights to the franchise to leave something of worth behind for future generations.
United Artists, the production company behind the Rocky franchise, is a subsidiary of Metro-Golden-Meyer. MGM is now owned by Amazon, who is notorious for shady, and very poor, ownership and profit sharing practices.
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Source: Variety
Higher education professional by day, writer and pop culture enthusiast by night. When he isn't writing for The Cinema Spot, Tristian can be found creating content for his YouTube and TikTok pages, or working on the young adult novel he has been trying to finish for the last three years.
This article was edited by Zach Smith.