{"id":438170,"date":"2026-04-16T13:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T13:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/438170\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T13:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T13:41:13","slug":"anthony-ippolito-becomes-young-sylvester-stallone-in-i-play-rocky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/438170\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Ippolito Becomes Young Sylvester Stallone in ‘I Play Rocky’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tI Play Rocky<\/a>, which follows the making of the iconic Sylvester Stallone<\/a> movie, arrived in heavyweight fashion to Las Vegas on Wednesday during Amazon MGM Studio\u2019s CinemaCon<\/a> presentation.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnthony Ippolito stars as a young Stallone<\/a> in the drama, which tells the true Hollywood story of making Rocky<\/a> \u2014 the tale of an unknown actor who bets on himself to become Rocky Balboa. Directed by Peter Farrelly,\u00a0the film\u00a0will open nationwide in theaters<\/a> Nov. 20 following a limited release on Nov. 13; it\u2019s just in time for Rocky\u2018s 50th anniversary, as the original was released Nov. 21, 1976.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFarrelly appeared on stage with Ippolito and several members of the young cast, as the director promised, \u201cThey\u2019re going to blow you away.\u201d They then kicked to some first-look footage, which sees Ippolito harnessing Stallone\u2019s iconic raspy voice and explaining that he now goes by Mike because kids made fun of his name. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou don\u2019t got the looks to be a movie star, you talk like you\u2019ve got rocks in your mouth,\u201d he\u2019s told as he tries to become an actor, until his girlfriend, played by AnnaSophia Robb, encourages him to both keep his given name and write his own script, taking the best part for himself. And so he writes Rocky, and then goes on a quest to convince the studio execs to play the titular role. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe eventually does land the gig, putting in hours of training but still doubting his path. By the end, with the iconic Rocky score in the background, the character questions, \u201cThis movie is about having a belief in yourself, it\u2019s about going the distance. I put my heart and soul on the page; if I\u2019m not willing to live up to what I wrote, then what\u2019s the point? So do you believe in me, or not?\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tRobb, Matt Dillon, P.J. Byrne, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Jay Duplass, Stephan James, Kiki Seto, Robert Morgan, Saul Stein, Trevor St. John, Erik Palladino and Rob Demery also appear in the film, while Ippolito enters familiar territory of placing the young version of a Hollywood legend \u2014 he previously portrayed Al Pacino in the Paramount limited series\u00a0The Offer.<\/p>\n

\n\tRocky, distributed by United Artists and later MGM, is one of the most iconic and financially successful sports film franchises of all time, grossing over $1.7 billion globally, including the modern\u00a0Creed\u00a0spin-offs. Stallone created and starred in the movies, with the story of his fighting to act in the 1976 movie, which went on to win the Oscar for best picture, now part of Hollywood history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I Play Rocky, which follows the making of the iconic Sylvester Stallone movie, arrived in heavyweight fashion to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[173444,192977,18,117,150865,19,17,36523,36545],"class_list":{"0":"post-438170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cinemacon","9":"tag-cinemacon-2026","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-i-play-rocky","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-rocky","16":"tag-sylvester-stallone"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116414676274894414","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}