# How Stallone wrote Rocky in three feverish days

> Peter Farrelly's new film traces the scrappy true story behind one of cinema's greatest underdog movies.
- Title: How Stallone wrote Rocky in three feverish days · TIME
- Summary: Peter Farrelly's new film traces the scrappy true story behind one of cinema's greatest underdog movies.
- Keywords: i play rocky, sylvester stallone, rocky, peter farrelly, anthony ippolito, film biography, 1976 film, TIME
- Source: TIME — https://time.com/article/2026/11/06/i-play-rocky-movie-review
- Author: Stephanie Zacharek
- Published: 2026-11-06T19:59:06.188+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: i play rocky, sylvester stallone, rocky, peter farrelly, anthony ippolito, film biography, 1976 film, news, world
## Rocky arrived from nowhere
In nineteen seventy-six, Rocky was made for just a little over a million dollars.Its cheap vibe was part of the excitement.Kids, teenagers and adults all went to see it.
## Stallone wrote it himself
The film's star mumbled his lines and had heavy-lidded eyes.That he had also written the movie seemed slightly miraculous, the opposite of business-as-usual in Hollywood.
## A new film tells the backstory
I Play Rocky, directed by Peter Farrelly and written by Peter Gamble, is a crowd-pleaser that fills in the background of one of the greatest crowd-pleasers of its era.
## Stallone's early struggles
In early nineteen seventies New York, Stallone goes by the made-up first name Mike, thinking it will increase his chances of becoming a star.He reads for parts but does not get them.
## He meets Sasha and finds purpose
Stallone finds a puppy named Butkus, after football star Dick.He lands a role in a softcore film, then gets a job taking tickets at a movie theater.
## Rocky written in three days
Stallone races through the Rocky screenplay in a feverish three days.Producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler tell him it has got something.
## Stallone refuses to sell without starring
Stallone sticks to his guns. He will not sell this screenplay unless he can also star in the movie. His plainspoken insistence on this fact gives the film its title: I Play Rocky.

> I Play Rocky
## Farrelly knows what audiences want
Director Peter Farrelly made signature comedies of the nineteen nineties, among them Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary.
## Ippolito captures young Stallone
Ippolito plays the young, hungry Stallone as a figure driven by both ambition and need.
## The meat locker scene shows the cost
A million things go wrong before Rocky eventually plays to and thrills audiences. When Rocky Balboa punches frozen carcasses in the meat locker, they are frozen solid, the equivalent of driving your fist into a…
## The underdog story becomes a hit
Stallone's eventual, unexpected victory is a runaway hit film.Farrelly, like Stallone before him, knows what audiences like to see.I Play Rocky hits all the right beats.Every day, algorithms tell us what we ought to like.
## Key takeaway

I Play Rocky chronicles how Sylvester Stallone wrote and fought to star in the 1976 film that became a cultural phenomenon despite its tiny budget.