‘It was a total miracle’: How rejection led Sylvester Stallone to create film’s ultimate underdog Rocky

In I Play Rocky, the studio United Artists offers Stallone increasing sums to sell the script, just as long as he lets an A-lister of the era, such as Burt Reynolds or Ryan O’Neal, take the title role. But Stallone was determined that he and he alone should play Balboa. In reality, there are conflicting accounts of how much money he was offered for the script – Stallone himself has said it was $360,000. But, as broke as he was, he wouldn’t budge.