In recent years, some big movie franchises have done the unthinkable and killed off characters that have been part of Hollywood output for decades. One legendary character who almost met that very fate is Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa, who was originally set to die during the events of spinoff movie, Creed.
After decades battling his way through round after round of brutal boxing action, Stallone seemed to have hung up his gloves following the release of Rocky V in 1990. However, Stallone was back in the ring 16 years later in Rocky Balboa. Then, incredulously, in 2015, the Rocky franchise received a new lease of life with Creed, a spinoff that saw Stallone return as Rocky but the focus shift to the son of his former opponent and friend Apollo Creed, Adonis, played by Michael B. Jordan. While speaking to GQ, Stallone revealed that he “dodged the bullet” of seeing Rocky killed off in the franchise, as originally intended by director Ryan Coogler. He said:
“I was never comfortable. I dodged that bullet for two years, three years. And Ryan Coogler was very persistent, kept pushing it. And we had the same agent, but I didn’t want to do it because the way he had written it, Rocky dies. He gets Lou Gehrig’s disease. And I said, I have a big thing about characters like that dying. I’d much rather them get on a train going somewhere, and you never see them again. But to die, it will just bum the audience out completely.
So once we got over that, I said, okay, we’ll give it a shot. And it was a lot of dramatic acting in that because I couldn’t use my body. I wasn’t fighting. So that was a good challenge and it turned out pretty well.”
Sylvester Stallone Had Been Leaving His Big Franchises, but Found a New One on TV
Over the last several years, Sylvester Stallone has appeared to be saying goodbye to many of his best known characters. After dipping out of the Creed franchise after Creed II in 2018, the actor has also ended his run as John Rambo with Rambo: Last Blood in 2019, and took a major step back with The Expend4bles, allowing Jason Statham to take over as the main lead.
However, as several chapters of his career seem to have ended, Stallone has found huge success by taking on his first major TV role with Taylor Sheridan series, Tulsa King. Currently airing its third season on Paramount+, the show sees Stallone playing Dwight “The General” Manfredi, a former Mafia boss released from prison after 25 years who sets out to rebuild his empire. The show has been a big streaming hit in the last few years, and Season 4 has already been green lit, meaning that Stallone has plenty to occupy himself with right now.
Although it seems likely that Creed 4 will happen at some point, it seems like the franchise has moved away from Rocky Balboa, which means that when it does return, Stallone will probably be sitting on the benches once again. However, there is always a chance that he could return in a small capacity again as long as the character is still alive in the universe, something that is only possible thanks to Stallone’s insistence that he was not killed off right at the beginning of the franchise.