Has Sylvester Stallone lost his mind?

[Flack]

David Winkler, a Hollywood director and producer, recently released a memoir titled "The Arrangement: A Love Story." Winkler wrote and directed a few films, most notably "Finding Graceland," but is better known for producing "Rocky Balboa" and all three Creed films. He is also known for being the son of Irwin Winkler, producer of Raging Bull, The Right Stuff, and Rocky 1-5.

Sylvester Stallone starred in all those Rocky films and many others. He directed Rocky 2-5, along with a few other films including 2008's Rambo, The Expendables, and super oddly, Staying Alive. He wrote the original Rocky films and most of the Rambo sequels. (And, yes, Staying Alive.) But what he did not do was produce the Rocky films, and that makes the Italian Stallion PUNCHING MAD.

Stallone took to Instagram to review David Winkler's new book, referring to the book as “unbearable worthless dreck” written by “the painfully untalented David Winkler who is the son of the remarkably untalented and parasitical Producer of Rocky and Creed.” It's fairly obvious that Stallone's beef isn't with the book, but instead with the WInklers. One of Stallone's posts blames Winkler for not making even more Rocky films. "If it wasn’t for Winkler there would’ve been at least another three Rocky’s, that would’ve been wonderful … frankly that crew are the worst unhunman beings I’ve ever met in the movie industry."

Stallone's beef isn't about not getting paid for his work on the films. While his salary for the first film wasn't great (about $35k), Stallone got points and backend percentages that have added up to around $2.5 million for just the first film. Those numbers increased with every film; he got paid $15 million for his work on Rocky V. Every article cites his net worth as somewhere between $400-$450 million.

But what that doesn't include are any rights to licensing or merchandise. He doesn't own that, which he believes he deserves "just because."

“I have zero ownership of ‘Rocky,’” Stallone told Variety in 2019, sharing that an annuity of sorts that could be left to his children after his death was something he desired. “It was shocking that it never came to be, but I was told, ‘Hey, you got paid, so what are you complaining about?’ I was furious.”

In his recent Instagram spat, he wrote more.

"[A]ter IRWIN controlling ROCKY for over 47 years , and now CREED, I really would like have at least a little WHAT’s LEFT of my RIGHTS back, before passing it on to ONLY YOUR CHILDREN - I believe That would be a FAIR gesture from this 93 year old gentleman ?” he wrote. “This is a painful subject That eats at my soul, because I wanted to leave something of Rocky for my children, but it’s always great hearing from the loyal fans.”

“We are Very happy Rocky Producer IRWIN AND MARGO , CHARLES and DAVID and THE ENTIRE EXTENDED FAMILY are staying heathy and very bloody well fed off the ITALIAN STALLION , while CONTROLLING All of the ROCKY FILMS FOR ALMOST 50 YEARS ! Bon appétit! KeepPunching!”

Stallone comes off as an unhinged, frustrated, and furious old man in these Instagram posts. The LA Times noted that "the star shared a drawing of what appeared to be Irwin Winkler super-imposed on a snake, characterizing the work as “a VERY flattering portrait” of the “great” producer." Stallone has since removed the drawing, which took me 3 seconds to find on Google.



As of this morning it's not just the drawing, but all of Stallone's posts regarding the matter have been removed. Maybe he cooled down, maybe he sobered up, maybe he got a call from Winkler's attorney, maybe he got a call from his own. I (kind of) get that Stallone wishes he were richer and that he had more of a legacy to leave to his children, but I'm not sure demanding things that aren't yours and then drawing snake drawings of the guy you're asking stuff for is the way to go about it.

"They drew first blood," Stallone said in regards to the incident. Just kidding, that's from Rambo.

I plagiarized many quotes from the follow two articles.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... nkler-book
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/sylv ... 235318474/

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Stallone wrote "Rocky", right? Unless he sold the rights to the merchandising .... er.... did he sell the rights to the merchandising?

For a long time, the Beatles controlled the narrative that they did not have the publishing rights to their songs. Outrageous! What the hell! How could Michael Jackson be so cruel????

Decades later I read that, oh, as they were getting famous the Beatles sold the rights for a good chunk of money that, while nowhere near what they would be worth later when they were the biggest cultural thing going in the western world - wasn't peanuts. That totally changes things to, "These poor kids from Liverpool got ripped off" to "they made a financial decision that ended up turning sour."

I do kind of thing Stallone should have the merch rights to his IP. I have created a bunch of IP that doesn't have a lot of value but I'd never get rid of it because if something did take off, you can do what George Lucas did and create an empire selling plastic toys to Americans. So I am wondering how things got to this situation with Stallone.

[Flack]

So, here's the way I understand it.

Stallone wrote the original script to Rocky (in 3 days) and got the agency representing him, FAME (Film Artists Management Enterprises) to shop it around with the specific caveat that he would only sell it if he were also allowed to star in the movie. After many rejections, FAME made a deal with Winkler-Chartoff Productions (Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff). Winkler-Chartoff Productions already had a different movie deal with United Artists and were able to get a deal knowing that if Rocky bombed, the success of the other film ("New York, New York") would cover them. (Ironically, "Rocky" way, way outperformed "New York, New York".) Winkler-Chartoff Productions had an offer to sell Stallone's script for $300k (about $1.5m in today money) and he turned it down, insisting that he star in the film. Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff pulled a lot of favors and also mortgaged their own houses to get the money to make Rocky.

(Not for nothing, but Stallone borrowed lots and lots of details for his screenplay from other boxers. He has stated that he wrote the screenplay after watching the Ali/Wepner fight, which Wepner eventually sued him over (the case was settled out of court). The scenes of Rocky punching hanging meat and running up and down museum steps are apparently taken from Joe Frazier's autobiography. And then there are a couple of boxers, specifically Rocky Marciano and Rocky Graziano, who would like to have a word with Stallone about the character and film's name. Additionally, Stallone's script was changed heavily -- for example, in the end of the screenplay, Rocky throws the fight and walks away from boxing -- so for him to walk around moping that he solely created the success of Rocky is a bit aahhhhhhhh.)

It is 100% true that Stallone wrote and starred in Rocky, and without him, there would be no Rocky. It is also true that without Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, we definitely would not have the Rocky we know today, and it's possible we wouldn't have Rocky at all. No one was lining up to make a deal with a first-time writer that also involved a no-name demanding to star in the film. In my opinion, Stallone made the deal he felt like he had to make to get the movie made, and he did. I also feel like Winkler and Chartoff bent over backwards to include Stallone as much as possible. Let's be honest, did they really need Stallone to write or direct those other movies?

So Stallone made and continues to make money off of Rocky, but what he doesn't own is the rights to the character of Rocky Balboa, which means he can't license the character for merchandise, and doesn't make any money from stuff like that. I'm sure he gets some residuals when they make a video game that contains his likeness, but he can't sign the deals. According to what I've read, Stallone was super pissed when he pitched an idea for a Rocky prequel a few years back and Winkler turned it down.

And to be fair, Stallone has had two careers, both of which he owes to the original Rocky. He made millions by writing, directing, and starring in those early films. (Again, he got $15 million for Rocky V which, spoiler, was not worth $15 million.) When his career was in the crapper he experienced a resurgence after making Rocky Balboa, which led to the Expendables, Guardian of the Galaxy, and other opportunities. Again, Stallone has a net worth of nearly half a billion dollars, so clearly money isn't the issue here. This is akin to someone winning the lotto, choosing the lump sum over the annual payment plan, and then screaming at the lottery commission about how unfair it was that they let him do that. 9It's not exactly like that, but you get the idea.) When you sign everything away in order to get fame and success and ultimately get fame and success... is there any obligation to return the very thing you signed away in order to make the deal in the first place?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Having half a billion dollars makes this moot, but this is what I saw tonight:

"Stallone primarily blames his lack of business savvy and naiveté for not demanding the rights to Rocky. At the time of Rocky’s release, Stallone felt there was a code of conduct to be followed, explaining “you don’t want to ruffle the feathers of the golden goose,” (via Variety). He didn't believe he could go up against the production studio, who even controlled his agency and attorneys."

I mean, I don't know. If starring in it is more important than owning the merch rights... Then that's the deal he made. But IMO he should have the merch rights no matter what, it should not even be allowed to be taken from him.

A million people write a million books and screenplays a year in this country. It should not be possible in my opinion to lose out of something hits big.

[Flack]

The thing is, Stallone keeps saying he wants his rights "back" and that his rights were "taken from him" but... he never had them.

Take Peter Benchley -- a fine writer who wrote a little book called Jaws. A couple of movie producers read the book and offered Benchley $100k for the film rights, which today would be about half a mil. Benchley wrote multiple draft scripts for the film, all of which were rejected. The film's quite a bit different than the book (in the book, Quint kills Jaws and both he and Hooper die). As far as I know, Benchley didn't get any money from Jaws t-shirts or Jaws video games and I can't even find any record of him making money from any of the Jaws sequels (which he had nothing to do with). So that's just how it is -- Benchley wrote the story and then sold it to a producer who got the movie made.

It would be the same if Electronic Arts offered you a million dollars for the complete rights to Cryptozookeeper. You wrote it, but they would then own it and you would give up all the rights. And maybe they never do anything with it, and maybe they make a movie version that makes a zillion dollars and they sell t-shirts and at that point you would be prohibited from doing anything with the license because you don't own it. Maybe there was a deal to be made up front with 1% of the merchandise rights or something, but that ship done sailed.

And here's the unfortunate reality. If Stallone had said that he wanted to write it, AND star in it, AND own the rights... UA would have said no thanks and went and wrote their own boxing movie. In that sense he is right about the golden goose, so to speak. Ask for too much and they'll cut you out of the deal.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

How did Lucas get the Star Wars merch rights and Stallone not get the merch rights for Rocky? He had one movie under his belt, which admittedly is more than Stallone had, I think. Is it because George didn't insist on playing Han? I've always heard nobody even asked for the action figure rights to Star Wars because they didn't even think of it - but I think Star Wars and Rocky came out around the same time. It DOES seem like Stallone made the right call because Lucas can introduce a thousand different characters and you're pretty much limited to some manageable number of boxers for a Rocky franchise.

[Flack]

Fox offered Lucas something like $750k to make Star Wars, and he presented a counter offer and said he would do it for $150k as long as he retained merchandise and sequel rights. Francis Ford Coppola had produced Lucas's two previous films (THX-1138 and American Graffiti), which helped Lucas get Star Wars made. Keep in mind that multiple studios passed on making Star Wars, which was pretty much seen as a Flash Gordon rip-off. Saving half a million dollars in exchange for merchandising rights in that situation must have seemed like free money to Fox. I'm sure all parties involved were surprised Star Wars toys were selling in 1977, and I guarantee NOBODY involved ever dreamed that 45 years later people would still be buying Han Solo action figures. Frankly, merchandise rights weren't even a thing until Jaws, and wouldn't have been on most people's minds. Like, nobody was buying 2001: A Space Odyssey bedsheets. Back then movies had lunchboxes and Halloween costumes if they were lucky and that was about it.

Frankly, if Stallone had come to the table with a similar deal -- say, instead of a $100k deal, settling for half that in exchange for merchandising rights, they probably would have jumped at the deal. Again, nobody thought Rocky was going to be a hit -- they actually expected it to lose money -- so saving tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for something that was likely worthless would have been a good deal. Again, that was 1976; Jaws (in 1975) started the ball rolling and by 1977, Star Wars had changed the rules.

Think of it like this -- imagine starting a company in... oh, 1994, and debating whether or not you should also buy the domain name. Like, in 1993 it wouldn't be a deal, and in 1995, companies would be a lot more likely to do that. Like, I guarantee in 1980 when they made Flash Gordon, I guarantee none of the individuals working on the film got offered merchandising rights. Cat was out of the bag by then.

[AArdvark]

Stallone wants his cake and eat it too. He's upset (online) because he can be

[Flack]

Last week, Stallone lashed out again. I'm sure this is all about his legacy and has nothing to do with anything els--

Sylvester Stallone's Wife Jennifer Flavin Files for Divorce After 25 Years
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment ... -25-years/

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

My wife was upstairs goo-gooing and ga-gaaing about Sly last night. "Look how good he looks! Wow he really kept himself in shape!"

Knowing that he is now on the market, I am marking this thread CRITICAL. Because fellas, he may be, what, 75? I don't think I can take him.

[Jizaboz]

Knowing that he is now on the market, I am marking this thread CRITICAL. Because fellas, he may be, what, 75? I don't think I can take him.

You know he's got that stupid "old man" strength too! There was this dude in his mid 70s in our Ju-Jitsu class years back who had taken a lot of Judo off and on over the years. When that dude grabbed you and went to throw, your ass would be thrown unless you did some serious skipping around and maneuvering. His bones and muscles felt hard as rocks; just a knotted, stubborn Ent of a man. Literally couldn't do anything to him without hurting yourself lol