ROCKY II (ROCKY/CREED MARATHON)
- Matt Palmer
- Mar 9, 2023
- 3 min read
Initial release date: 6/15/1979
Studios: United Artists
Tagline: Once he fought for a dream. Now it's fighting for love!
Plot: Although working class Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa lost his high profile bout with the cocky world champion Apollo Creed, his Cinderella story has caught the national sports media's attention, and he know has the opportunity to capitalize on a sudden fame. Meanwhile, Creed is still smarting from nearly losing to some palooka no one has ever heard of, and arrogantly prods his newfound nemesis into getting back into the ring.
Cast
Sylvester Stallone - Rocky Balboa
Talia Shire - Adrian
Burt Young - Paulie
Carl Weathers - Apollo Creed
Burgess Meredith - Mickey
Tony Burton - Apollo's Trainer
Joe Spinell - Gazzo
Sylvia Meals - Mary Anne Creed
Writer/director: Sylvester Stallone
Rated PG (119 minutes)
The first 'Rocky' sequel takes place not too long after the events of the 1976 original. These two movies flow nicely together and when viewed back to back, it seems like a nice flowing story. Also, what helps is that the sequel continues with the Rocky-Apollo Creed plot.
The re-match that occurred in the latter half of the film is tremendously awesome, and honestly, is better than the first film's fight. Both fighters want to prove something and will fight as hard as possible to win. One thing that is also amazing is that after the re-match, the two fighters gained respect for one another.
The remainder of the film is still fairly good. It shows how Rocky's life changed after the first fight and how he gained a celebrity status. And, the training montage that's featured is just as iconic and memorable as the first one.
Now, the rest of the 'Rocky' movies would be first time viewings for me!!! Just watched 'Rocky III' last night and thought it was a great installment and will be working on my take of that one soon!
Here are some interesting tidbits for 'Rocky II':
When Rocky is training for the fight, he's sparring with a smaller quicker fighter. The sparring partner is played by real life champion Roberto Duran.
800 local schoolchildren were used as extras for the scene depicting Rocky's run through Philadelphia.
After the bell rings, signaling the end of the second round, Stallone and Weathers are seen pushing, shoving, taunting, and ultimately being pulled apart by their respective corner-men. They continue to taunt each other before returning to their corners. Stallone revealed later they were actually angry with each other and weren't acting at that point, several blows that were supposed to miss him landed and the carefully choreographed fight, which they spent months meticulously planning out, went off-track during that scene, but he liked the reaction the scene produced.
He decided to leave their momentary breaking of character in and the viewing audience never realized the two actors were really quite livid with each other.
Stallone began working on the 'Rocky III' script immediately after completing this sequel, with the intention of the series being a trilogy. Originally, he had no plans to make a fourth film.
As he had done with the original, Stallone incorporated biographical elements from his own life for this film. In particular, Stallone used as a central plot point the concept that yesterday's heroes are quickly forgotten. In the film, this manifests itself in terms of people forgetting about Rocky's exploits in the title fight. In reality, Stallone experienced a similar sense of being quickly forgotten after this two post-'Rocky' movies - 'Paradise Alley' (1978) and 'F.I.S.T.' (1978) - both under-performed.
'Rocky II' opened in 805 theaters and grossed $11 million in its first week. It finished in the top 3 highest grossing films of 1979, in both the North American market and worldwide. In the US and Canada, the film grossed $6.4 million during its opening weekend, and $8.1 million in four days. It went on to gross $85.1 million at the domestic box office and $200.1 million worldwide.
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