“Rocky. The Complete Films”: What a $2,000 Book Has to Say

Just in time for Christmas in 2018, publisher Taschen released a tome of photographs from the boxing franchise Rocky. At more than $2,000, Rocky. The Complete Films was the biggest, yellowest, and most expensive book to ever grace a stocking, revealing a bunch of stuff about Sylvester Stallone’s pugilist that had been locked inside Sly’s head since 1976. Almost inevitably, it has another take on a well-worn story, that of Rocky’s origins.

“A Heavy Bag with Eyeballs”

The Rocky franchise has cleared $2bn (Rocky IV tops the charts at $127.8m lifetime) over the past half-century, after branching out into all kinds of media, so the $106 Stallone had to his name when pitching the original script is a distant memory. Rocky made a technological leap recently to online gaming, alongside another early action franchise, Terminator (1984). 

Playtech, known for casino games like Gem Heat, added the Philadelphia fighter to its repertoire of slot games. Rocky Mega Fire Blaze is a licensed product that features the likeness of Drago, Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and the Italian Stallion himself. It’s playable on the Betfair website, where players can learn how to play Gem Heat slot, too. 

Rocky Balboa’s origin story has always been enigmatic, not least because it mirrors Stallone’s struggles with poverty. Indirectly, it also involves some of the biggest boxing names from the seventies, like Chuck Wepner, “a heavy bag with eyeballs”, to quote Stallone, who famously knocked down Muhammad Ali. 

According to an excerpt from Rocky. The Complete Films published by GQ, Wepner changed from a “complete joke” to a relatable character in a moment. This image of a journeyman taking down a colossus, even “for a moment”, would inspire Stallone to write Rocky – but not before he’d sold a similar rags-to-riches script called Hell’s Kitchen. 

Rocky Marciano

Hell’s Kitchen would dump Sly back on the Hollywood landfill after a production company refused to work with the upstarts – or “neophytes” – that bought the script. However, a chance audition with Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, two men who would go on to produce every Rocky film, as well as the Robert de Niro vehicle Raging Bull (1980), encouraged Stallone to write something new.

In Rocky. The Complete Films, Stallone credits Mean Streets (1973), Marty (1955), and On The Waterfront (1954) as inspirations. The actor wrote Rocky in three days, finding impetus from Chuck Wepner’s against-all-odds fight against Ali.

Fans might also recall that Rocky Marciano, who fought for eight years between 1947 and 1955, becoming the only heavyweight pugilist to retire undefeated, helped Stallone fill in other aspects of Rocky, like his southpaw stance. 

Actor and unlikely politician Arnold Schwarzenegger joined a party for the launch of Rocky. The Complete Films in Beverly Hills. It includes a 1975 painting of the fighter by Stallone called Finding Rocky, a copy of the film’s original notebook, and Sly’s signature (on all 2,000 copies).

Of course, it’s as about as rare as hen’s teeth today, with copies going for thousands of dollars.