Rocky turns 50 on November 21. It opened on that day in 1976 at the Cinema II in New York, and set a house record on its first day there. It widened over the following weeks and became the highest-grossing film of 1976 in the US and Canada.
Sylvester Stallone wrote the script in about three and a half days, then refused to sell it unless he played the lead. United Artists saw it as a vehicle for an established star, and Stallone turned down a six-figure offer rather than let it go. John G. Avildsen directed on a production budget of about $1 million, shooting mostly in Philadelphia.
That budget shows on screen in the best way. Rocky is a neighborhood film before it is a boxing film: the first date on an ice rink rented after closing because the production could not afford a crowd of extras, the morning run up the art museum steps that Garrett Brown's new Steadicam followed. Talia Shire's Adrian is as much the point as the fight.
It won three Oscars, including Best Picture, and in 2006 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry. The anniversary has company in theaters, too: I Play Rocky, Peter Farrelly's film about how Stallone got it made, opens nationwide on November 20. The original is the better first watch.
