Rocky IV (1985)

Rocky IV, released November 27th, 1985.

Budget on this was $28 million.

Box office, listen to this, boys, $300.5 million.

And this was directed, once again, by Sylvester Stallone.

All right, before we get to this science fiction film that we're going to discuss, I need to close out last week's show.

So last week we talked about Rocky III.

There were a couple things I wanted to mention about it before we get rolling on this, and I guarantee one's going to lead to the other.

First, do you guys know who auditioned to be Clever Lang's trainer in the corner? Famous actor.

We discussed him this year.

Um...

Scatman Carthers?

I don't know.

Mr. Morgan Freeman auditioned for that role.

Could you imagine? That was 22 years before Eastwood scooped him up for Million Dollar Baby.

So that's number one.

Number two is going to lead into this film, and I want to talk about the review that Siskel and Ebert did for Rocky III when that movie had come out.

What they said, and tell me if you guys agree with this, is they thought that Stallone had placated to an audience that wanted to see him once again beat up on an African-American fighter, and they called it semi-racist.

Matt, would you agree with that?

No, because the movie really doesn't play the race card.

That's not a part of clubber's mo that's not really ever brought up so i don't think that i i think that's a low blow to criticize

all right so rocky four boys this was the time sylvester stallone had the most power in the world yeah how much power sylvester stallone wielded around this time

How much power?

Paramount Studios, every time they churned out a script that they greenlit, it had to go past Sly's desk first so that he could either accept it or deny it.

That is why we get the stories about Beverly Hills Cop, which maybe we'll cover one day, and everything else that had to do with Sly and his power at this time.

So what does he do in the interim? Well, since Rocky III was a huge success, he is inspired by a couple things.