Sylvester Stallone’s Original Rocky Plan Would Have Killed The $1.8 Billion Boxing Franchise Before It Began

The original screenplay for Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky featured one detail that would have changed the entire story for the worse. While certain later entries in the Rocky franchise struggled to locate grounding within the series’ increasingly high stakes, it’s worth remembering that the first Rocky thrives off its powerfully grounded, character-driven drama. While the boxing narrative is the 1976 film’s driving force, it’s the time spent in Rocky’s working-class neighborhood, witnessing how the world treats him and how he treats the world in turn, that makes the story so compelling.