There’s A Movie About The Making Of Rocky Happening, And I’m Really Digging Who’s Been Cast As Young Sylvester Stallone

In 1976, Sylvester Stallone achieved worldwide fame with the release of Rocky, one of the best boxing movies of all time. It not only won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and was nominated in seven other categories, it kicked off a franchise that was still going as of 2023 with the release of Creed III. Now a movie about the making of Rocky, which Stallone also wrote, is in the works, and I’m really liking the guy they cast to play the man behind the Italian Stallion in the mid-‘70s.

Anthony Ippolito has been selected to play Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky, which is being put together by Amazon MGM. THR shared the casting news, along with mentioning that Green Book’s Peter Farrelly is directing this movie about the great efforts Stallone took to make Rocky a reality and ensure that he played the title role. As you’ll see when comparing the below still of Ippolito to the one of Stallone in Rocky above, the resemblance is quite remarkable.

This picture comes from the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive series The Offer, which chronicled the making of The Godfather. Anthony Ippolito played Al Pacino in the miniseries, but hopefully enough of you reading this agree with me that he looks a lot more like Sylvester Stallone. Ippolito was also reportedly channeling the same kind of energy that Stallone was during the Rocky days, as the former made an “unsolicited” audition tape and sent it directly to the I Play Rocky producers.

Anthony Ippolito’s other credits include The English Teacher, Pixels, Purple Hearts and Grand Army. Rather than making I Play Rocky an exclusive offering for Prime Video subscription holders, MGM intends to release it theatrically. So count on a lot more people being introduced to Ippolito as he portrays another one of Hollywood’s famed Italian American actors, this time on the big screen.

As far as the Rocky franchise itself goes, there are a handful of projects in the works, including Creed IV, a spinoff focusing on Ivan and Viktor Drago, and a TV series following Rocky Balboa before the events of the first movie. There was also a time when Sylvester Stallone was developing a seventh Rocky movie, but that appears to be falling by the wayside over his inability to acquire any of the Rocky rights. Hopefully that doesn’t mean he’s not willing to meet with Anthony Ippolito and give him some tips on how play him when he was a struggling unknown.

We here at CinemaBlend will keep you apprised on more updates concerning I Play Rocky, including when it’s scheduled for theatrical release. Stream the Rocky and Creed movies to your heart’s content on Prime Video, and catch Sylvester Stallone reprising Dwight Manfredi in Tulsa King Season 3, which premieres on Paramount+ September 21.