Scot Teller, who plays Burt Young/Paulie, has posted that Peter Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky” will be released in November 2026. That’s a major fall slot, which indicates Amazon/MGM has positioned the film for awards contention.
Farrelly (“Green Book”) is directing the film, which is inspired by the story of how Sylvester Stallone came to make his 1976 boxing classic “Rocky.” And what better way to cast the role of Stallone than to just sign up his doppelgänger? No, really—this guy looks like his duplicate. His name is Anthony Ippolito; he previously played Al Pacino in Paramount’s limited series “The Offer.”
Is this stunt casting? You be the judge. I’m not familiar enough with Ippolito’s work to weigh in, but these first images from the set of “I Play Rocky” emphasize just how much of a dead ringer he is. They can be seen below this article.
Stallone did not give his blessing to the project, but he hasn’t slammed its existence either. He’s said he’ll wait for the final product before judging. The plot is said to follow “a struggling actor with a partially paralyzed face and a speech impediment who writes a script that a big movie studio wants to buy, but he refuses to sell it unless he gets to play the lead.”
Ippolito is part of a cast that includes Anna Sophia Robb as Sasha Czack, Matt Dillon as Frank Stallone Sr., Stephan James as Carl Weathers, PJ Byrne as producer Irwin Winkler, and Jay Duplass as “Rocky” director John Avildsen.
Farrelly recently released the comedy “Ricky Stanicky,” which was actually a decent laugh. Before that, he directed the mixed-reviewed “The Greatest Beer Run Ever,” and, of course, he won two Oscars for the 2018 Best Picture winner “Green Book.”
Here are Farrelly’s thoughts on the film:
It’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. The guy who wrote it, Peter Gamble, came out of the blue. The guy teaches at USC. Toby Emmerich gave it to me, he’s a producer on it, and he said, 'Hey, read this script. I think it’s special.' It’s about the making of 'Rocky' and there’s a lot that I didn’t know. Stallone was homeless when he wrote that script, he was living in Penn Station, and he was doing softcore porn. He was broke. He had to sell his dog. He wrote this script and he gave it to the studio, and they were like, 'This is phenomenal. Here: we’ll give you 20 grand and go away. Because Burt Reynolds plays Rocky. You’re not playing Rocky.' ...He goes, 'No, I play Rocky.' And they said, 'OK, we’ll give you 50 grand.' This is a homeless guy. And there is a 'no.' It got up to 350 grand, and they said, 'Take it and walk away.' 'I’m not doing that. I want this movie.' So they gave him the movie to do it, but he had to sign a contract that if he got one day behind on the shooting, he’s out — and he agreed to that. So they kind of sabotaged him. On the first day of the shoot, the studio said, 'We need the exterior shot,' so they did every running shot in that movie on day one. He ran 18 miles. He ended up in the hospital. Day two was punching the meat. The meat is supposed to be cold, but no, it was frozen rock solid. He said, 'No, this has to be thawed out.' They said, 'Well we could thaw with hair dryers, but it’s gonna take three hours.' He’s said, 'Let’s do it,' and broke both of his hands. He went to the hospital four times while making this movie, and he had four weeks to make it with $1 million. He did it. So this guy went from homeless to winning the Oscar. The character Rocky had a job at the beginning and he didn’t win the fight. He lasted in the fight. To me, this is a better story.
Garland's script is written. Boyle called it "fantastic" in that same interview, Murphy says he's ready, and Boyle wants to direct. All that's missing is the money.