Stallone spoke first. In September 2025, he told The Playlist that news of the project had shocked him and said he had “zero to do with it.” He also suggested that, because he actually lived through the events, he might have been able to contribute useful insight.
That was a significant statement for a movie whose entire premise is his own struggle to write Rocky, preserve the starring role and survive the production that followed.
Farrelly says Stallone was his condition for saying yes
By April 2026, Farrelly was publicly disputing the idea that Stallone had simply been blindsided.
Speaking on The Discourse, the director said Peter Gamble's screenplay was sent to Stallone before Farrelly committed to directing. He then describes meeting Stallone at the Beverly Hills Hotel and telling him he would not make the movie without a thumbs-up.
According to Farrelly, Stallone gave it.
The director's explanation for the later disagreement is speculative. He suggested Stallone may have mixed up the situation while also working on his memoir or simply forgotten the exchange. Stallone has not publicly endorsed Farrelly's account of that meeting.
Approval and participation are not the same claim
This is where the dispute becomes less binary than the headlines make it sound.
Farrelly says Stallone was shown the script and informally approved the project. He does not say Stallone subsequently became a creative partner. Amazon MGM's official description credits Peter Gamble as writer and Farrelly as director and producer, with Toby Emmerich and Christian Baha also producing. Stallone is not listed among that core team.
So Stallone can accurately say he had no production role even if Farrelly's version of the approval meeting is also accurate.
The harder contradiction concerns surprise. A man who read the screenplay and personally told the director to proceed would be difficult to describe as entirely unaware of the project. There is currently no independent public account that resolves that discrepancy.
The movie is entering contested territory before anyone has reviewed it
Biographical dramas regularly compress conversations, combine events and turn memories into scenes. I Play Rocky has the additional complication of dramatizing one of the most heavily mythologized production stories in American film while its central subject is alive and publishing his own memoir.
Anthony Ippolito plays Stallone. The film also recreates Sasha Czack through AnnaSophia Robb, Carl Weathers through Stephan James, Irwin Winkler through P.J. Byrne, Robert Chartoff through Toby Kebbell and director John G. Avildsen through Jay Duplass.
Winkler has separately said he had no production involvement in I Play Rocky despite appearing as a character. He has, however, said he saw the movie and liked it.
Amazon is selling a clean underdog story
The official trailer has little reason to dwell on conflicting memories. Its version is elegantly simple: an unknown Stallone writes Rocky, Hollywood wants the script but not the actor, and he repeatedly refuses life-changing money until he gets to play the role himself.
That is also how Amazon MGM describes the movie — the underdog story behind the underdog movie.
The real production of Rocky contained more people, more negotiation and more institutional machinery than a slogan can carry. How much of that mess survives Farrelly's film will matter more than whether every recreated conversation happened word for word.
The first public screening is still ahead
For now, nearly all discussion of the dispute concerns statements around a film audiences have not seen.
I Play Rocky world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12. Amazon MGM will begin its U.S. theatrical rollout in November, while Metropolitan FilmExport has scheduled the French release for December 23.
