{"id":884857,"date":"2026-10-16T22:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T22:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/884857\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T22:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T22:48:09","slug":"i-play-rocky-is-surprise-movie-at-london-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/884857\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I Play Rocky’ Is Surprise Movie at London Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLondon Film Festival<\/a>\u2018s surprise film on Friday night was \u201cI Play Rocky<\/a>,\u201d Peter Farrelly\u2019s biographical drama about the beginnings of Sylvester Stallone<\/a>\u2018s beloved boxing franchise.<\/p>\n

\n\tFarrelly was on hand to introduce the movie and shouted out his star, newcomer Anthony Ippolito, who has already earned praise for his portrayal of Stallone. \u201cI could do a TED talk about Anthony Ippolito. This kid is ridiculous,\u201d Farrelly said, adding that the 27-year-old sent in a self-tape before the film team even began what was meant to be a \u201cworldwide search\u201d for who would play Stallone.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe heard about the movie, tracked down the script, shot three scenes in his grandmother\u2019s basement on Long Island and sent it to us,\u201d Farrelly continued. \u201cI looked at it like, \u2018That\u2019s it.\u2019 We never looked past him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI Play Rocky\u201d tells the true story of how Stallone, then a young small-time actor, overcame obstacles to both write and star in the 1976 classic. Alongside Ippolito, it stars AnnSophia Robb as Sasha Czack, Stallone\u2019s wife; Matt Dillon as his father, Frank Stallone Sr.; P.J. Byrne as \u201cRocky\u201d producer Irwin Winkler; Jay Duplass as director John G. Avildsen and more.<\/p>\n

\n\tFarrelly added that he\u2019s most proud of the fact that Stallone himself is pleased with the movie. \u201cNo matter how well the movie does, how many people like it, if Stallone said, \u2018I don\u2019t like it,\u2019 I would be really disappointed,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd he loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film first premiered at Toronto Film Festival last month, where it was up for the People\u2019s Choice Award and generated positive reviews. Variety\u2018s chief film critic<\/a> Owen Gleiberman called the film a \u201ccleverly-crafted crowd pleaser\u201d and praised Ippolito for getting his portrayal of Stallone \u201cjust right,\u201d writing: \u201cWatching and listening to Anthony Ippolito, we can believe that Sylvester Stallone is standing right in front of us, though the performance is more than just an awesome impersonation. He\u2019s truly playing Stallone \u2014 the sweetly stubborn and dogged person he was at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI Play Rocky\u201d is set to hit U.S. and U.K. theaters on Nov. 6. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London Film Festival\u2018s surprise film on Friday night was \u201cI Play Rocky,\u201d Peter Farrelly\u2019s biographical drama about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,256898,56151,206,53559],"class_list":["post-884857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-i-play-rocky","tag-london-film-festival","tag-movies","tag-sylvester-stallone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}