Rocky Fans Should Be Excited About Sylvester Stallone's Latest Project
If we go through the Rocky series in reverse chronological order, the Creed movies gave fans a glimpse of Rocky Balboa's final years. Rocky Balboa saw him returning to the ring for one last fight. Rocky V began his journey into retirement through the noble art of back alley brawling. Before that, he beat up communism in Rocky IV, learned how to run on the beach in Rocky III, became the World Heavyweight Champion in Rocky II, and in the original 1976 motion picture Rocky, became a famous boxer after a life spent as a small-time nobody.
But what, you might wonder, happened before that?
Sylvester Stallone has apparently been ruminating on the same thing, and took to Instagram on March 29, 2021 to let his followers know that a new project was in the early stages of the creative process, titled "Rocky Prequel Series — written by Sylvester Stallone," presumably temporarily. "I started out this morning by writing a treatment for a Rocky prequel For streaming," Stallone wrote in his social media post. "Ideally 10 episodes for a few seasons to really get to the heart of the Characters in there [sic] younger years."
And while the ins and outs of what Rocky fans can expect from the series are obviously thin on the ground, the first two pages of Stallone's rough draft treatment will certainly spark some imaginations.
It's time for Rocky before Rocky
"Imagine a time machine that will simply transport us back to the origins of "Rocky," Stallone's treatment compels us. "A cinematic world brimming with characters that have been beloved by people around the world for nearly five decades! Climbing aboard that time machine that will take us to the most transformative generation in modern history: The Sixties."
Stallone goes on to list a bevy of historical events including the moon landing, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement — "The Beatles, Dylan, Muhammad Ali. So on and on and on." He then questions a 17-year-old Rocky Balboa's place in this cultural landscape, pointing out that the character was a "lost soul" and "a wasted life" when viewers were first introduced to him, "until he was transformed into a winner."
Beyond the plot of the original movie, it's hard to fathom what stories could unfold explaining how Rocky Balboa became Rocky Balboa. Still, if there's a Young Indiana Jones Chronicles waiting to be made about a young Rocky boxing his way through the original lineup of The Rolling Stones, we — and the rest of the internet — are here for it.