Sylvester Stallone Furious Over ‘Rocky’ Franchise Rights Deal

Although ‘Rocky’ was created, written and starred by Sylvester Stallone in 1976, the actor has never owned the rights to the franchise.. The property of ‘Rocky’, its sequels and its spin-offs such as ‘Creed’ belong to Irwin Winklera 93 producer whom Sly has lashed out at in a recent Instagram post.

The ‘Rocky’ saga is one of the most profitable in history (The first cost just 1 million dollars and grossed 225 million worldwide), but Stallone has seen a very small percentage of those gains. Or, at least, that is what he believes, and that is how he has expressed it on his social networks.

The actor has posted a drawing depicting Wrinkler as a knife-tongued snake.and has stated that he wants to charge an amount more in line with his role in the franchise.

“A VERY flattering portrait of the great Rocky/Creed producer, IRWIN WINKLER, of one of the best artists in the country…ALSO after IRWIN controlled ROCKY for over 47 years, and now CREED, I would really like to have at least a little bit of WHAT LEFT behind my RIGHTSbefore passing it ONLY TO HIS CHILDREN – I think it would be a FAIR gesture from this 93-year-old man… This is a painful subject that eats at my soul, because I wanted to leave something of Rocky for my childrenbut it’s always good to hear from the loyal fans…Keep banging.”

Stallone has on other occasions expressed his discontent with the franchise’s profits, stating in 2019 to Variety “I don’t own ‘Rocky‘” sharing that he wanted some kind of annual payment that could be left to his children after his death. “It’s shocking that I never had the rights, but they told me: ‘Hey, at least you got paid, so what are you complaining about?’ he was furious.”

For your part. Wrinkler has always been surprised by these requestsstating that, for example, Stallone cashed in over $10 million on both ‘Creed’ and its 2018 sequel.

Sylvester Stallone will make his small screen debut in November 2022 starring in ‘Tulsa King,’ a mob series directed by ‘Yellowstone’ creator Taylor Sheridan, and will premiere on August 26 on Amazon Prime Video ‘Samaritan’, his first superhero movie.