The image of Sylvester Stallone will remain forever linked to the ‘Rocky’ franchise: he was the screenwriter and lead actor of the original film, the one released in 1976, and of the five sequels that have arrived over the years. However, he does not own the rights to the character creation, which are in the hands of producer Irwin Winkler. Stallone asks the latter for “a gesture of generosity” in order to be able to “leave something Rocky to my children”.
The history of cinema has it that the first ‘Rocky’ earned Sylvester Stallone $ 75,000 for screenwriting and acting. To this remuneration we must add a 10% on profits: according to what was told by the person directly interested in the magazine Variety, we are talking about 2.5 million dollars. In the mid-seventies, Stallone he didn’t force his hand to ask for property rights: “There was a certain code of conduct in business. Maybe that’s no longer the case today, but at that time there was a tendency not to bother the goose that lays the golden eggs.”
For years now, the issue of rights to ‘Rocky’ has resembled a karst river, which occasionally comes back to the surface. Till now Irwin Winkler spades replied, claiming that Stallone was fairly rewarded. But by now the producer is 93 years old and, who knows, he might be tempted by that “gesture of generosity” that is asked of him.