I was going to watch this film and always assumed Stallone wasn't appearing in it because he was too busy (Tulsa Kings?). No, he was written out of the franchise. It's also absolutely criminal how he was tricked out of how own IP and doesn't earn a penny from the franchise. Here's what Stallone had to say:
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Imagine creating a character and I'm not talking only about Balboa, but Creed himself...and then others not only appropriating it but excluding you from the films and making millions in the process. Disgraceful.
Sylvester Stallone spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about not reprising his role as Rocky Balboa in this sequel "That's a regretful situation because I know what it could have been," Stallone told THR's James Hibberd. "It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would've taken it. It's a different philosophy [producer] Irwin Winkler's and Michael B. Jordan's," Stallone said of the movie to THR. "I wish them well, but I'm much more of a sentimentalist. I like my heroes getting beat up, but I just don't want them going into that dark space. I just feel people have enough darkness." Stallone also revealed in the interview that despite having created Rocky Balboa, he has never had any rights to the character, despite asking Winkler. "It's never gonna happen," Stallone said. "It was a deal that was done unbeknownst to me by people that I thought were close to me and they basically gave away whatever rights I would have had." "At the time I was so excited to be working and I didn't understand this is a business," he continued. "Who knew 'Rocky' would go on for another 45 years? I've never used one [line of dialogue] from anyone else and the irony is that I don't own any of it. The people who have done literally nothing control it." I'm not an executive producer on the 'Creed' movies. Ryan Coogler is. Michael B. Jordan is. [Winkler and fellow producer Robert Chartoff's] children are. Not mine. I'm the only one left out."
Imagine creating a character and I'm not talking only about Balboa, but Creed himself...and then others not only appropriating it but excluding you from the films and making millions in the process. Disgraceful.
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