Stallone takes one for old guys in new Rocky film
From Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES—At 60,Sylvester Stallone thinks it’s time to show people that the careers of “guys like me,” can last long after most people retire, and he sets out to prove it in his new movie, “Rocky Balboa.”
“This is uncharted waters. People are living longer. They are healthier. They have more ambition, more energy, yet society is telling them to move aside,” Stallone told newsmen. “It’s different now, and I thought, ‘Boy, if I could just come up with a dramatic premise to use as a platform.”’
“Balboa,” which debuts in U.S. theatres on December 20, is the sixth movie in a series that began with 1976’s “Rocky.” Stallone famously raised about $1 million to make that low-budget film based on a screenplay he wrote and would not sell to Hollywood’s studios unless he was the star.
The original movie tells of a hapless boxer, Rocky “The Italian Stallion” Balboa, who overcomes huge odds to better his life. It became a surprise smash hit, earning over $117 million at U.S. box offices ($362 million in today’s dollars), winning the Oscar for best film, and making Stallone a worldwide star.
Four other movies followed the Philadelphia boxer through various stages — career success, family troubles and bankruptcy. Stallone said the lovable lug has been championed by fans because he is humble, can be self-deprecating and is sometimes fearful of what life offers. “He has an almost childlike naivete in the body of a very courageous fighter,” Stallone said.
Stallone said he wanted a nobler ending to the “Rocky” series than in 1990’s “Rocky V,” in which Balboa fights a young boxer he trained to help save himself from financial collapse.
In “Rocky Balboa,” audiences meet the champ back in his working-class Philadelphia neighbourhood. His wife Adrian, the love of his life, has died. Rocky is grief-stricken and estranged from his son.
Rocky tells old boxing stories to customers lingering at his Italian restaurant, Adrian’s, until a television network runs a computer simulated fight between Balboa, now in his late 50s, and current heavyweight champ, Mason “The Line” Dixon.
Boxing promoters sense an exhibition match in the making, and Rocky signs up, because, as he tells his best friend Paulie: “I still got some stuff inside.” Stallone, who wrote and directed “Balboa,” said he spent 6 1/2 years trying to get the movie made and most Hollywood studio executives scoffed at the idea.
Eventually new management came in at the MGM studio which owns the “Rocky” films, and they helped Stallone raise $20 million — a small amount by studio standards — to make the movie. “It’s like back to ‘Rocky,’ same thing. You just got to do it yourself, and hope someone out there believes in you,” Stallone said.
“Rocky Balboa” is a lot like the previous movies — right down to Rocky in his grey sweatsuit running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the song “Gonna Fly Now.” People may roll their eyes. Even Stallone admitted to being a cynic, early on, about the idea of a 50-something boxer.
While it is too soon for reviews, many audience members who have seen the movie in Hollywood screenings were delighted that the new movie is somewhat like the original in style and substance. And for those audiences, the general refrain has been this: Rocky is back, still packing a punch — even for an old guy.